PERSONAL 

POWER. 

KEITH J. THOMAS 



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PERSONAL POWER 






Personal Power 



BY 

KEITH J. THOMAS 




FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

NEW YORK and LONDON 
1917 






Gift 

Publisher 

SEP 8 1910 



*'/. - 



. /- 



All Reghts Reserved. 



To H. SIMONIS 

My Dear Simonis, 

You will find in these pages much of your 
own genial and kindly wisdom allied to a certain 
philosophy of my own. How much of this latter 
springs from the inspiration with which you have 
furnished me you may guess for yourself. Those 
who have such a friend as I have will appreciate 
his help and encouragement the more for reading 
this book, which, because you have thus helped 
me to write it, I inscribe with your name. 
Your very sincere 

KEITH J. THOMAS. 
Brockley, 

October, 1912. 



CONTENTS 



PART I 

Power in the Making 

CHAPTER 

i 1. The Gift of Power . 
.2. Qualities that make fob Success 
. 3. Every Man his own Mind-maker 

4. Simple Ideas for Mental Training 

5. The Power of Sympathy 

6. The Tyranny of Doubt 

7. Study 

8. Culture and Charm 

9. The Fear of Failure 

10. Keys to Happiness . 

PART II 

Power in Use 

11. The Knowledge of Power 

12. Mental Stocktaking 

13. Planning for Success 

14. Using your Four Eyes 

15. The Uses of Oratory and Conversation 

16. Generosity as a Mental Force . 

vii 



PAGE 

3 

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27 
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59 
72 
79 
90 
97 



111 
121 
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136 
143 
153 



vili Contents 




CHAPTER 

17. The Greatness of Little Things 


PAGE 

. 160 


18. The Active Mind .... 


. 166 


19. How to get Good Luck 


. 177 


20. The Power of the Written Word . 


. 189 


21. The Habit of Power .... 


. 202 


PART III 




Pleasures of Power 




22. The Joy of Labour . 


. 215 








24. The Use of Books . , 




. 233 


25. The Riddle of Life . 




. 245 


26. The Lessons of Art . 




. 252 


27. The Secret Chamber 




. 261 


28. Music and the Mind . 




. 268 






. 284 






. 289 


31. The Reward of Power , 


» » 


. 297 



PART I 
Power in the Making 



CHAPTER I 

THE GIFT OF POWEE 

"Man is his own star, and the soul that can 
Render an honest and a perfect man, 
Commands all light, all influence, all fate." 

John Fletcheb. 

"XJE not afraid of greatness," says Shakespeare. 
JLI " Some men are born great, some achieve 
greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 
them." Which are you? I will tell you. You 
were born great ; you can achieve greatness if you 
will ; and if you go about it the right way, you will 
have greatness thrust upon you. \y 

The mistake so many people make is to confuse 
greatness with riches. The great man can have all 
he wants, but he need not necessarily become rich. 
Carlyle was no more intended to be a millionaire 
than Andrew Carnegie was made to be a Milton. 
We cannot all be Nelsons, or Pitts, or Shakespeares, 
or Darwins, or Rockefellers, but we can all be 
great. If we want money we can get it, if we want 
power we can get it : the only condition being that 
we should want it badly enough. Whatever our 

3 



4 Personal Power 

desire is, we must be prepared to give up all plea- 
sure and all ease to attain it. Fortune is a hard 
mistress and will brook no rivals, but to the man 
who is prepared to serve her whole-heartedly she 
offers the sure promise of his heart's desire. 

When we look back over the pages of history 
and scan the records of the world's most success- 
ful men, we find that there is not so much wonder 
when a man rises from penury to supreme heights 
as when a man with wealth and influence does so. 
All the experience of the world goes to show that 
the lower down a man is on the ladder of fortune, 
the more likely is he to rise. The reason is that the 
rich man has so many distractions, and, more than 
this, does not have the same hard experiences 
which develop character and brain. 

As soon as a man makes up his mind that he 
will do something with his life, he changes over 
from a state of drift to one of action. It is easy 
to drift, but it is better to struggle, for the current 
of life drags men on to the rocks and into shallows 
unless they map their course along the right chan- 
nels where the deep waters are that will bear them 
to their harbor. 

Imagine a five-million-dollar battleship, with 
steam in her boilers, being allowed to drift upon the 
ocean. What would happen? She would collide 
with something sooner or later, and be seriously 



The Gift of Power 5 

damaged, if not totally wrecked. Some one, how- 
ever, takes control of her. The hnge engines are 
started, and put forth their strength ; the course is 
set by the guiding intelligence, and the vessel jour- 
neys through calm or tempest wherever the ruling 
brain directs. 

Every man and woman born into the world is 
like that. We are all capable of setting our course, 
y^e are all built to overcome the difficulties we may 
encounter in following it, and we are free to drift 
or progress as we choose. If we want to move 
onward we must first see that our propelling power 
is in order, then we must set our course, and finally 
we must stick to that course unswervingly and with 
unceasing vigilance, for the moment we relax we 
drift. 

In that analogy is the whole secret of success in 
life ; and the power that is in us, awaiting the com- 
mand of our brain, will prove either useless or 
an obedient worker of mighty energy, just accord- 
ing to the manner in which we neglect or develop 
it. 

The force that drives a man to any goal he has 
before him is personal power. It is the Divine part 
of the man that gives him dominion over the earth, 
and over himself. It is something more than in- 
telligence, because it makes a man use his intelli- 
gence in the right way. It is something more than 



6 Personal Power 

character, for it creates character. It is something 
more than personality, because a man's personality 
is but an expression of his mind. It is more than 
all these things, because it gives a man the eye to 
see beauty, the mind to appreciate life in its ful- 
ness, and the strength to grasp what he needs from 
the hands of Fortune. 

If you are discontented, if you are despondent, 
even if you are despairing, there is still the dor- 
mant power within you waiting and able to turn 
discontent to serenity, despondency to happiness, 
and despair to hope. 

The limbs of the body, if unused from year's end 
to year's end, would wither — simply for want of 
use. It is the same with a man's personal power, 
except that it never withers so much that he can- 
not quicken it into vitality again. It will shrivel 
and shrink, but as soon as he calls upon it, it will 
start growing again, and he can develop it into a 
mighty force which will make his life whatever he 
wishes it to be. 

Your personal power is yours alone. You only 
can develop it; you alone can use it. More than 
this, it is fashioned by the Creator to serve your 
particular needs. Unless you have the inventive 
genius it will not make an Edison or a Marconi of 
you, and as soon as you recognize that truth you 
will realize the fallacy of those writers on success 



The Gift of Power 7 

who tell the world that a man can do whatever he 
will. Unless yonr brain is Napoleonic you cannot 
be a Napoleon, and even if by sheer determination 
yon could emulate his achievements, life would not 
be worth while, for you would get no pleasure out 
of it. There is, however, this compensating ad- 
vantage : whatever you are fitted for you can attain 
by using your power in the right way, and you can 
be sure that the results you will get will satisfy you 
completely — that is, as much as the human mind is 
capable of complete satisfaction. If you honestly 
desire a fortune more than anything else in the 
world, you can make one. If you want a compe- 
tence only, but a supremacy in art or a science, you 
can succeed in these. Let your actions follow the 
aspirations of your heart, so long as these are pure 
and noble, and there is no power outside of you that 
can withstand the power you hold locked within 
your breast. Nothing worth having is easy to win, 
and there is no royal road to success in any depart- 
ment of life. But there is a sure road that all may 
travel, hard and stony and wearisome, but with 
flowers springing by the wayside to brighten the 
path, birds singing in the blue to cheer the journey, 
and the sure promise of reward waiting at the jour- 
ney's end. 

Whatever theories we may evolve for the suc- 
cessful conduct of our lives, this shining truth 



8 Personal Power 

stands forth most obvious — there can be no success 
without strength of character. Let us go a little 
farther and probe, so far as we can, some of those 
deep mysteries concerned with the subconscious 
forces within us. A man's character and a man's 
intellectual power are subtle, intangible things. 
The question we have to ponder over is : How shall 
we so develop our character and our intellect that 
these shall influence others ! 

A man comes to see me in business. He puts a 
proposition before me and makes no impression 
whatever. Another man comes with a similar pro- 
posal and compels my interest. Some men we meet 
leave a strong impression behind them. We re- 
member them long afterwards. Faces in a crowd 
interest us. People seen in a drawing-room at- 
tract us, and we instinctively like them. Are these 
things pure accident ? I put it to you that they are 
not, and I go farther, and say that we can all de- 
velop our personalities and similarly draw people 
to ourselves. 

In discussing this question, we stand on sacred 
and solemn ground. There is something more of 
the divine in the intellect than in the body. ' ' The 
mind's the measure of the man." The mind is the 
field the Creator gives us to cultivate and to bring 
forth its fruit. If the parable of the Ten Talents 
means anything, it means that we are to culti- 



The Gift of Power 9 

vate all the gifts which lie dormant within us. If 
Shakespeare had been content to lead an idle life, 
the matchless magnificence of his thoughts would 
never have been set down for the benefit of pos- 
terity. If Christ had done His bare work in the 
carpenter's shop, the most shining example of 
manly perfection and the splendid prospect of the 
Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, 
culminating in the hope of the life beyond, would 
not have been handed down to us. Wherever we 
note the results of a great life we see that they were 
attained by ceaseless effort, strenuous living, and 
endless self -culture. Each of us has his gift. If 
you have a poem in your mind, write it down, how- 
ever feebly. Perfection is the result only of drudg- 
ery, and that is the reason of the saying : ' ' Genius 
is an infinite capacity for taking pains." 

Consider the evolution of Nature — how slow it 
is, measured by our standards of time. In the field 
we see the tillage, then the sowing, then the sprout- 
ing of the seed, followed by the shooting of the 
stem, the bud, and, finally, the full bloom of the 
flower. 

All through Nature there is this same gradual 
progression. Can we hope to develop our powers 
more rapidly, and should we not learn from this 
and be well content to make our gradual progress 1 
We cannot see the flowers grow, nor can we see 



10 Personal Power 

our own intellectual progression. Day by day, as 
we study and work, we are moving forward. God 
made the earth of countless atoms; He covered it 
with numberless green things and many-hued de- 
tails of shrub, bloom, and tree. The sea is colorless 
if you take a little in your hand. But as you look 
at all these millions and millions of infinitesimal 
particles you see the earth in all its beauty, and the 
sea in all its grandeur. So it is with our daily life. 
We toil and drudge, we bear the burden and keat 
of the day, we are weary and deprest, and when & 
new day dawns we see the fruits of our labor 
in some completed and satisfying work. As the 
Psalmist says : ' ' They that sow in tears shall reap 
in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing 
precious seed, shall doubtless come again with re- 
joicing, bringing his sheaves with him." The only 
condition for coming again with joy is that you 
take your seed and go forth. 

Tho before the eyes of omnipotent Providence 
we must seem small and insignificant, we each 
have our part in the great scheme of the uni- 
verse, and it is expected of us that we bear our 
part worthily. The ideal of life is a gradual evolu- 
tion towards perfection. All our trials and strug- 
gles are part of that evolution, and, remembering 
this, we cannot lose heart. To ourselves, however, 
our own life is the paramount thing. A French 



The Gift of Power H 

poet said : ' ' My life is but a little thing ; but it is 
— My life." Whether our life is big or little de- 
pends upon ourselves. If we desire to make it big, 
fruitful, and complete, our desire must result in 
effort. However small our life may be, it is essen- 
tial to the scheme of the universe, or we should not 
be living at all. If we only regard our daily work 
as necessary (as it surely is) to the whole living 
race and the races to come, no task can be ignoble 
and no endeavor unfruitful. 

Before we can command success we must be 
competent, and we must be confident in that com- 
petence. That is self-reliance. If you have not 
yet read Emerson's essay on " Self -Reliance, ' ' I 
advise you to do so. In time of doubt and difficulty 
it is like the voice of a strong friend cheering you. 
' ' Let a man, then, know his worth and keep things 
under his feet," he says. " Let him not peep or 
steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity 
boy, a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which 
exists for him. . . . Insist on yourself; never 
imitate. Your own gift you can present every 
moment with the cumulative force of a whole life 's 
cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another 
you have only an extemporaneous, half-posses- 
sion. That which each can do best, none but his 
Maker can teach him. . . . Where is the mas- 
ter who could have taught Shakespeare? . . . 



V 



12 Personal Power 

Do that which is assigned thee, and thou canst not 
hope too much or dare too much. ' ' 

And again: " To believe your own thought, to 
believe that what is true for you in your private 
heart is true for all men — that is genius. Speak 
your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal 
sense ; for always the inmost becomes the outmost, 
and our first thought is rendered back to us by 
the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as 
the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit 
we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they 
set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not 
what other men, but what they, thought. A man 
should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light 
which flashes across his mind from within, more 
than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. 
Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, be- 
cause it is his. In every work of genius we recog- 
nize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to 
us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works 
of art have no more affecting lesson for us than 
this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous 
impression with good-humored inflexibility, the 
most when the whole cry of voices is on the other 
side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with mas- 
terly good sense precisely what we have thought 
and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take 
with shame our own opinion from another.' ' I 



The Gift of Power 13 

will take one more stirring passage from this essay, 
because it hints so plainly at the Divine providence 
that in times of inspiration we feel working within 
us: 

1 i Trust thyself : every heart vibrates to that iron 
string. Accept the place the Divine providence has 
found for you ; the society of your contemporaries, 
the connection of events. Great men have always 
done so, and confided themselves child-like to the 
genius of their age, betraying their perception that 
the Eternal was stirring at their heart, working 
through their hands, predominating in all their 
being. And we are now men, and must accept in 
the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; 
and not pinched in a corner, not cowards fleeing 
before a revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, 
pious aspirants to be noble clay plastic under the 
Almighty effort, let us advance and advance on 
Chaos and the Dark." 

Does this passage not inspire us in our lowliest 
and humblest work? Is it not a grand destiny to 
form a part in a great scheme planned by an all- 
wise Providence, working out His will, subordinate 
to it, but necessary to its perfection? And should 
we not in our smallest work strive to make our la- 
bors worthy of the noble fabric which we are per- 
mitted to build? If we are to make a real success 



14 Personal Power 

of our lives, we must develop and use the talents 
with which the Creator has endowed us. 

We come, then, to the question of the methods 
by which we are to do our best work, and how we 
are to fit ourselves to fill our allotted place in life. 
The athlete trains himself for the strain of the race. 
In an athletic contest the body is sharply tried. 
The heart and lungs are called upon to do a vast 
amount of extra work, but by careful training the 
runner gradually brings his organs to such a state 
of perfection that he is able to withstand easily 
the extra strain that is put upon him. 

In the remorseless competition of our modern 
business life a similar strain is put upon the mental 
capacity. Have you ever thought of training your 
mind to meet it? Few men think of it, but those 
who do are the stronger for it. The mind is a mys- 
terious element which we are unable to fathom. It 
governs the body, and, as we know, it is so potent 
that it even shapes the body. People judge other 
people by their faces. That is to say, they discern 
in a man's face the impress of his mind. An im- 
becile has a vacant expression. A keen mind pro- 
duces a keen-looking face. 

I remember discussing a financial magnate with 
another man. The magnate in question, I pointed 
out, has a very indolent air, and at a casual glance 
looks very stupid. " Yes," said my friend, " but 



The Gift of Power 15 

when you catch him looking at you, you are struck 
by the fact that he has a very intelligent eye." 

A sage once remarked, ' ' No clever man ever had 
a lack-luster eye." I doubt if any very bad man 
has a serene face. Certainly he would not have a 
clear gaze. Such things are the external manifes- 
tations of the mind. The hypnotist exercises his 
influence through his eyes. The human voice, as 
shown by the orator, has its effect in producing 
emotions in the listener. The very expression plays 
its part, as a sympathetic look can take the place of 
volumes of words. All these things are directly 
influenced by the mind, and the stronger your mind 
is the more forcibly will you impress your will 
and your personality upon the people with whom 
you come into contact. 

Start at once upon the preliminary training of 
the intellect, because its force in daily life depends 
upon the power with which you can exercise it, and 
that power can only be developed by careful study. 
First of all, you should strengthen your intellect by 
reading good literature, and whenever you come 
across a fine passage you should memorize it. 

It was said of Macaulay that if every copy of 
Milton's " Paradise Lost " were accidentally de- 
stroyed, he could replace it from his memory down 
to each comma. He trained his wonderful memory 
in the following way : When he was reading a book, 



16 Personal Power 

he would stop at the end of each page and endeavor 
to recollect what that page was about. He did 
this so carefully that gradually he trained himself 
to such a pitch that by merely reading a passage, a 
page, or a poem, or even an article, he could repeat 
it word for word. 

If you will follow this practise you will find that 
your memory will be wonderfully strengthened. 
More than this, you will lay up in your mind a vast 
store of literary treasure that will reflect itself 
in your speech and writing, and influence your 
thought in the most desirable manner. Take the 
best literary models and commit the passages to 
memory. John Bright, one of the most famous 
orators that ever lived, took the Bible for his 
model, and became so familiar with its style that 
his speeches, reflecting that style, were remarkable 
for the purity, grace, and splendor of their diction. 
The example of Demosthenes, whose name will 
ever live as an orator, is a shining light to the strug- 
gling man. He had an impediment in his speech, of 
which he cured himself by putting pebbles in his 
mouth and declaiming on the seashore. If you 
have a talent, you can develop it even if you 
possess some physical or mental disqualification. 
How much less should you be discouraged if you 
have no such drawback? 

Start training your memory with poetry, and 



The Gift of Power 17 

learn it by reading it aloud. If you read it merely, 
you have only the eye to help you recall it. If you 
speak it, the sound of the words helps you to re- 
member them. Blank verse is more difficult to 
memorize, but by choosing good models you acquire 
a nobility of diction and thought at the time that 
you are further strengthening your mind. More- 
over, you will learn how to express your thoughts, 
both in words and writing, tersely and succinctly. 
Prose is harder still to learn, but when you can 
learn it easily, you will know that you have a culti- 
vated memory which will serve you well by enabling 
you to remember what you read, what you hear, 
and what you see. Your mind will be active and re- 
ceptive. You will observe keenly, and you will be 
better fitted for success in every way. 

Do not try to do too much at the start. Give ten 
minutes a day at first. Master a small poem, even 
if it takes you several days. In that way you will 
not get tired of your exercises, and as you go on 
you will learn more in the time you allow yourself. 
I would recommend Addison's " Spectator " for 
your prose memorizing, Shakespeare's sonnets for 
your poetry. Dr. Ginsburg, the eminent Hebrew 
scholar, once described the " Spectator," in my 
hearing, as the finest prose writing in the language. 
I will give you one passage from it to memorize. 
The subject is " Superstition ": 



18 Personal Power 

11 I know but one way of fortifying my soul 
against these gloomy presages and terrors of mind, 
and that is, by securing to myself the friendship 
and protection of that Being Who disposes of 
events, and governs futurity. He sees, at one view, 
the whole thread of my existence, not only that 
part of it which I have already passed through, 
but that which runs forward into all the depths of 
eternity. When I lay me down to sleep, I recom- 
mend myself to His care; when I awake, I give 
myself up to His direction. Amidst all the evils 
that threaten me, I will look up to Him for help, 
and question not but He will either avert them, or 
turn them to my advantage. Tho I know neither 
the time nor the manner of the death I am to die, I 
am not at all solicitous about it; because I am 
sure that He knows them both, and that He will not 
fail to comfort and support me under them. ' ' 

Eeading the " Spectator " lately, I came across 
a quotation from " Paradise Lost," which gives 
an excellent example for memorizing: 

" Nor think, tho men were none, 
That heav'n would want spectators, God want praise: 
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep; 
All these with ceaseless praise His works behold 
Both day and night. How often from the steep 
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard 
Celestial voices to the midnight air, 



The Gift of Power 19 

Sole, or responsive each to other's note. 
Singing their great Creator ! Oft in bands, 
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk, 
With heav'nly touch of instrumental sounds 
In full harmonic number join'd, their songs 
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heav'n." 

Now, it is essential to mind-training that you 
do not learn without thinking. If you are content 
merely to memorize the finest passages of our 
literature you are making a lumber-room of your 
mind and nothing more. You must understand 
what you read. I would recommend you to read 
" Sesame and Lilies," by Ruskin, and you will un- 
derstand what I mean. 

So much for the theory of elementary mind cul- 
ture. It is worth your while to practise it. The 
strengthening of your memory is the first step to- 
ward the cultivation of your mind, which will 
have far-reaching effects upon your will-power and 
upon your whole life. Your life is yours to make 
or mar. You have inherited a glorious gift. It is 
your duty to use it well, and in fulfilling that duty 
be sure you will gain your reward in increased 
capacity for getting the utmost out of all that life 
has to offer. 



, 



CHAPTER II 

QUALITIES THAT MAKE FOR SUCCESS 

" The words of the wise are as goads." 

The Book of Proverbs. 

OF late years business men have taken more 
and more to adopting mottoes to keep always 
before their minds and stimulate them to efficient 
work. One of the most popular to be seen hanging 
in a prominent place in many an office is, " Do it 
now." An enterprising advertising firm adapted 
this as a kind of trade-mark in the phrase, " Do it 
better. ' ' Years ago, before the practise became so 
general as at present, some great man, whose name 
is lost in obscurity, took for his motto the text, ' ' Do 
the next thing ' ' ; and I know of another which was 
a favorite saying of a very prominent industrial 
magnate, now dead : i i Do it at once and do it well. ' ' 
A business friend told me that he thought a good 
motto would be, " Do it yourself ' ' ; and within sen- 
sible limits the phrase is excellent, since many of 
us are too fond of leaving to others the things we 
should do ourselves. 

30 



Qualities that Make for Success 21 

It is well to have some such guiding principle 
in life, some mental spur that will always make us 
produce our best. Take for your motto the words 
' ' Do your best, ' ' and you will never have cause to 
complain of failure in life. Whatever you have to 
do, do it as well as you know how. The habit of 
doing everything as perfectly as you can will in- 
fluence your character and your whole future. It 
is so easy to get into slipshod methods. There is 
often a temptation to rush a thing in order to get 
it done quickly and out of the way. Why do that, 
when you know that one thing well done is worth 
a dozen half done? When you have once done a 
thing as well as you possibly can, it is finished with. 
Do it imperfectly, and if it is to be of any use at 
all it must be done again, and you waste your time 
and energies when you do it carelessly. 

Have you ever realized how much success in life 
depends upon the choice of associates and friends ? 
You can take it as a safe rule that the tendency is 
for your friends to draw you to their own level. If 
you mix with people who are idle you will tend to 
become idle. Eemember the old warning about 
playing with fire. Do not risk being burnt. Ask 
yourself frankly about people : ' ' What shall I 
gain by knowing them I " If you cannot gain some- 
thing from intercourse with a man, it is not worth 
your while to know him. Life is too short to waste 



22 Personal Power 

time with people from whom you can gain nothing. 
Mix with your intellectual superiors, with the 
people who can call forth your knowledge and keep 
your mind active. Associate only with those whose 
minds are worth measuring your own against. Be 
sure that if you make friends with people who waste 
their time, who have no intellectual force, and no 
strength of character, you will dull your intellect 
and your powers will degenerate. If a man is noble 
in character, if he is industrious, if he is intellec- 
tual, if he is a thorough good sportsman, you will 
be all the better for knowing him. Examine your- 
self as to whether you will be better for knowing 
a man, and if you cannot answer in the affirmative, 
drop his acquaintance. 

Personally, I have one great friend. My family 
tell me sometimes that I have spoken just as he 
does, and his family, on occasion, have said the 
same thing. We all get tricks of speech, thought, 
and action from each other. One might well say, 
" Show me a man's friends and I will tell you what 
sort of man he is." You can be sure that an in- 
timate friend of Lord Eothschild or of Lord 
Kitchener would be a man of great intellectual and 
personal force. Such men would not associate 
with mediocrities. 

It is a useful habit to acquire the capacity for 
judging oneself. No man is insensible to flattery, 



Qualities that Make for Success 23 

but every man ought to be able to distinguish be- 
tween praise that is merited and flattery that means 
nothing. The man who lives for flattery is blind- 
ing himself to his own deficiencies. The clever man 
watches for his weaknesses and strives to over- 
come them. ' ' A man is known only to himself and 
God," is a true saying. If we are praised for do- 
ing work which may be good enough in itself, but is 
not the best we could do, we ought to be ashamed 
rather than pleased. 

Learn to blame yourself. A successful man once 
told me that when he was negotiating with a firm 
for an agreement for long employment, he said to 
the principal, "If I do not satisfy you, you will 
never need to ask me to go. I shall go myself be- 
fore that is necessary." Such a man does not rely 
on others for praise or blame. He judges every 
action as he performs it. If it is done according to 
the best of what he is capable, he is satisfied ; other- 
wise, he blames himself. Do not be content to 
judge yourself by what others do or by what others 
think. You know what you are capable of, and you 
should never be satisfied with anything short of 
your most perfect work. 

We are forever assuming that vices grow upon 
us, and we should do well to remember that our 
virtues do also. The habit of doing our best work 
will develop our powers of will and make our work 



24 Personal Power 

better and better. The men who succeed are those 
who always try to go one better than their competi- 
tors. Every man in your office is a competitor for 
the top place. The man below you wants your 
place, just as you should want the places that are 
above you. A man who employed hundreds of 
clerks and workmen all over the world, when asked 
to give some suggestions for success in life, re- 
marked, in the course of his reply : "I have often 
heard it said that there are not so many chances 
for a young man to rise nowadays as formerly. I 
do not agree with this view. I believe that there 
are even greater chances for young men than ever 
before. But these greater opportunities demand 
greater qualities — qualities that can only be ac- 
quired by an increased devotion to study — to 
greater self -discipline, and to an unconquerable de- 
termination to master the principles that underlie 
the profession or business engaged in. Less oppor- 
tunity for getting on! Why, one of the greatest 
difficulties of large employers is to find thoroughly 
capable men to manage the various departments of 
their concerns; there are many who think them- 
selves capable, but few who can stand the test. 

" It has been said that ' Knowledge is Power,* 
but a man may have a great deal of knowledge with 
very little wisdom. Wisdom — which is distilled 
knowledge — is, undoubtedly, a powerful factor in 



Qualities that Make for Success 25 

human affairs, and happy is the man who possesses 
it. Knowledge is no longer a steep which few may 
climb; the opportunities for acquiring it are now 
so many and so various that to be ignorant is quite 
unpardonable. It has been truly said that experi- 
ence keeps a dear school, but it is the only one fools 
will attend. Happy is the man who is always pre- 
pared to avail hi?: .self of the experience of others. ' ' 

There is a man in London now making an in- 
come running into well over fifty thousand dollars 
a year. Only a few years ago he was an obscure 
clerk. One day he said: " It is no use trying to 
do just the same work as other people ; I must do 
more. ' ' He started taking work home with him so 
that he could get through more than his competi- 
tors in his office. He was not content to conform to 
the usual office hours, and he developed such a ca- 
pacity for work that he found all sorts of possi- 
bilities which the others never discovered, so he 
soon left them far below him on the ladder of suc- 
cess which all were starting to climb. 

Be sure that you need not go looking for your 
opportunities if you do your daily work with all 
the powers of your mind. Carlyle says: " Our 
grand business, undoubtedly, is not to see what lies 
dimly at a distance, but to do what is clearly at 
hand." Do your work faithfully and do as much 
work every day as you can, and opportunity will 



26 Personal Power 

come knocking at your door. Only the lazy com- 
plain of the fickleness of fortune, and their ill-luck, 
as they term it, is their just reward for idleness. 
Eemember what Ruskin says in his Lectures on Art : 
" Life without industry is Guilt," and it is guilt 
that surely brings its own punishment. You have 
all the experience of the past to profit by. Believe 
that as the days go on, and your experience in- 
creases, knowledge will increase with it, and that 
with industry you will acquire wisdom, and with 
wisdom gain everything that you can desire. 



CHAPTER III 

EVERY MAN HIS OWN MIND-MAKER 

" Whatsoever the mind has ordained for itself it has achieved." 

Seneca. 

MOST people are mentally lazy. They may 
be active and energetic enough as regards 
their bodily faculties, but they absolutely refuse to 
use their minds more than they can help. Those 
who complain of ' ' brain-fag ' ' are very often suf- 
fering from mental lassitude because they do not 
give their minds enough exercise. It ought to be 
known by everybody that the brain requires judi- 
cious exercise quite as much as the body does. 
People with active minds do not complain of brain- 
fag ; it is the mentally indolent who do that. 

Why is it that country dwellers are not so quick- 
witted as those who live in the great cities? It is 
simply due to the fact that business life in the 
big towns is a constant process of sharpening the 
intellect. Daily intercourse with large numbers of 
people, and the continual interchange of thought 
with them on diverse subjects, make the mind active 

27 



28 Personal Power 

and keep it naturally so. This is no reflection upon 
the mental capacity of people who live in the coun- 
try. It is a reason why they should counteract any 
dulness in their mental surroundings by active 
thought exercises. Many people living in towns 
and doing routine work are far less active, men- 
tally, than others living in the country, who have 
nothing like the same opportunity of mental culture 
through social and business intercourse. 

It is a fact that the mind stagnates and suffers 
harm if it is not exercised. The Hindu fakir hold- 
ing his arm motionless above his head from year's 
end to year's end deliberately allows it to wither. 
The left hand of most people is useless for many 
purposes because it is not trained. Doctors tell us 
that each hand is controlled in its movements by a 
different side of the brain. We all know that the left 
hand is as capable of writing as the right hand is, 
yet when we try to use it for that purpose the re- 
sults are ludicrous. Careful and constant practise 
would soon enable us to write with equal facility 
with either hand. We simply allow that part of the 
brain which controls the necessary movements of 
the left hand to lose its power. By careful culti- 
vation we could restore the control, and it would be 
all the better for the brain if we did so. This is 
but one example of the manner in which many parts 
of the brain are neglected by most people, and it 



Every Man his own Mind-maker 29 

shows what can be done to develop latent abilities 
by strengthening different sections of the brain if 
we devote ourselves to such an aim. 

One of the greatest recompenses for hard mental 
work is the discovery from time to time of un- 
suspected talents. A lot of people question their 
abilities to cope with new work, the scope of which 
lies rather outside their ordinary experience. 
They are afraid to undertake tasks which involve 
work of an entirely new nature — work which can- 
not be performed by reference to the actual experi- 
ence of the past. These are the people who keep in 
one groove, who never advance beyond the stage 
of mediocrity in their life's work. The man who 
is continually reaching out after more experience, 
who is not afraid to tackle a big task because it 
requires imagination and resource, finds that his 
brain will respond to the call and help him nobly. 
He finds he is able to do things he never thought 
he could do, and very often such things are done so 
well that he is tempted to wonder if there is not a 
great deal in the theory of successive existences 
for the same personality. Most men who conduct 
their work on the principle of undertaking any 
task that comes their way feel, from time to time, 
so confident of the right manner in which the work 
ought to be done that they almost believe that they 
have done similar work under like circumstances 



30 Personal Power 

in some previous stage of their existence. What- 
ever the explanation may be, it is quite certain 
that when we are determined to make use of our 
minds in some particular direction the brain re- 
sponds to the call; and tho it may work slowly 
and with difficulty at first, it will inevitably grow 
more active if we persevere, until it will work al- 
most automatically. 

In training the mental faculties, we should keep 
before us the Greek ideal of all-round fitness, not 
the aim of so many athletes of excessive develop- 
ment of some particular muscles at the expense of 
the others. The old saying, " A wise man can 
learn more from a fool than a fool from a wise 
man, ' ' is worth taking special note of, inasmuch as 
a constant desire to learn results in a continual 
widening of knowledge, and the more we know, the 
more we can use our brains as they ought to be 
used. Too many people are foolishly anxious 
about discovering some particular branch of knowl- 
edge which it will pay them to study. Knowledge 
should be pursued for its own sake. " Seek for- 
tune and it flies from you, ' ' treat it casually and it 
follows you. This means that if you go upon the 
principle of getting the most out of your daily life 
and doing the most work you can every day you 
live, your life 's work will open itself out. Only by 
acquiring all the knowledge you can, will you find 



Every Man his own Mind-maker 31 

what particular branch of knowledge is of most 
use to you. Be sure that all information worth 
acquiring will be of use to you some day or other, 
sooner or later. 

You can learn something worth knowing from 
everyone you meet — something which will be use- 
ful to you in after-life, tho the information may 
seem useless to you at the time. Napoleon was not 
merely a consummate general ; he was a diplomatist 
and a law-giver. Had he been content merely to 
master the technique of fighting he could never have 
reached the pinnacle of success to which he attained. 
The same applies to Washington, to Julius Cassar, 
and to Cromwell. All these great men acquired 
knowledge wherever they could; they extracted it 
from all the men they met, stored it in their minds, 
and used it when the proper time came. 

Why is it that these intellectual giants tower so 
in the sight of the world? Simply because of the 
power of their minds. They took all knowledge 
for their province, and they used it in pursuit of 
their purposes. Their intellectual progress was of 
slow growth, and most of it was due to their own 
sagacity. They simply used every atom of the 
force of their intellect by studying its possibilities 
and keeping their minds in perfect training. 

Some of the greatest forces in the world are 



32 Personal Power 

gentle enough in their action at any given moment. 
The constant dripping of the water wears away the 
stone. Each drop is so gentle that its force is 
scarcely felt. It is the never-ceasing application 
of this force that brings about the mighty result. 
In Egypt you can see vast pillars of stone hewn 
from the solid rock. They are perfectly cut, the 
pillars are straight and regular, yet they were 
made so without the aid of any of the blasting and 
cutting accessories which we use to-day. How was 
the work done? If it was desired to split a piece 
of stone in a perfectly straight line, small holes 
were cut at regular intervals. These were filled 
with water and small wedges of wood were driven 
in. The wood swelled, and the pressure was suffi- 
cient to split the stone in a perfectly straight line, 
as if it were soft and had been cut with a sharp 
knife. It is the same with the acquisition of knowl- 
edge and the training of the mind to enable it to 
exert its enormous power. A knowledge of the fact 
that wood swelled when moistened enabled the 
Egyptain craftsman to split the rock. Some item 
of information which you acquire to-day may, in 
the light of the knowledge you add to it in the 
future, enable you to find a way of doing some par- 
ticular piece of work which will revolutionize your 
life and perhaps make you a fortune. You will 
notice that many people knew that wood swelled 



Every Man his own Mind-maker 33 

when it was wet. It was some mind trained to ob- 
serve and think that took advantage of this knowl- 
edge and turned it to account. 

The habit of observation, of storing facts in the 
mind, and of adapting them to everyday needs by 
logical reasoning, is not a God-given gift to the 
few; it is a God-given gift to everyone. You and 
I have it, but its usefulness to us depends upon 
the assiduity with which we cultivate it. You will 
not notice the growth of your intellectual strength 
any more than you would notice the effect of any 
particular drip of water upon a stone ; but only be 
sure that you are training your mind to observe in 
the right way, and are constantly practising obser- 
vation, and you will certainly notice great increase 
of mental power from year to year. 

The method of mind-training for everyday prac- 
tise is as simple as it is infallible. It consists 
of the constant effort to avoid slipshod thinking, 
and to observe keenly. When you read a book, 
read it carefully. When you come across a word 
in that book that you do not know the meaning of, 
turn it up in the dictionary, and fix its meaning in 
your memory. Never use a word that you do not 
know the meaning of ; and when you are not quite 
certain of the way to pronounce a word, look it up 
in the dictionary also. 

A very good exercise to keep the mind fit is 



34 Personal Power 

to make definitions of words. Take the word 
" house," for example. Just write down a defini- 
tion of it as if you were making it for someone who 
did not know the meaning of the word. Make your 
definition clear and concise, and thoroughly de- 
scriptive of your idea, and then compare it with 
the one given in a standard dictionary, and see 
what faults you can find with your work. Defini- 
tion-making on this plan will teach you how to 
think and how to express yourself clearly and 
accurately. Above all, it will keep your brain in 
trim, and will fit it for hard work. 

The habit of turning up words you do not know 
the meaning of can be combined very advanta- 
geously with the definition-making exercise by keep- 
ing a list of words you turn up, and then making 
definitions of your own for them a day or two 
afterwards. This will fix the meanings in your 
mind. It will be well worth your while to make a 
daily practise of these two things for a few months. 
Do not think it is not worth doing, and that it will 
be " just as good " to make up the definitions in 
your mind without writing them down and com- 
paring them with those given in the dictionary. 
Very often the simplest things are best worth 
doing, and the foregoing is a case in point. If it 
is worth doing at all it is worth doing well, worth 
doing as well as it can possibly be done. If you 



Every Man his own Mind-Maker 35 

want to make yourself great, it is worth a little 
trouble, and the habit of doing things in the best 
possible manner will make you do everything you 
undertake in the same spirit of thorough perfec- 
tion. 

You are a budding Shakespeare if you are a 
writer, an embryo Wellington or Marlborough if 
you are a soldier. The same divine, creative spirit 
dwells in you that dwelt in Michelangelo, in Plato, 
in St. Paul. The only power that differentiated 
these men from their fellows and made them heroic 
figures shining brightly in the firmament of life 
was the power of mind. That same power will 
raise you above your fellows, above your competi- 
tors in business, above the disabilities of your 
environment — that power and no other. If you 
are to raise yourself intellectually the stimulus 
must come from yourself. You must make a point 
of training your mental faculties all day and every 
day, till you know what a vast power you have 
within you and how to use it. Mind created the 
world in the first place. Mind keeps the world a 
habitable place to-day. Everything that is made 
by men's hands is born first of all in their minds. 
According to the greatness of their brains is their 
work great or small. A mean mind never con- 
ceived a vast and sublime project. Say to your- 
self, " I hold within my mind, in an equal or less 



36 Personal Power 

degree, similar powers to those that Shakespeare 
had. I can raise myself above my fellows, out of 
the ruck of mediocrity, above worries and disap- 
pointments, by developing my mind. I can succeed 
in anything I plan, and I can plan noble deeds if 
my mind is big enough and broad enough. A little 
thought and care every day, a little trouble, a habit 
of thinking systematically and logically, will bit by 
bit strengthen my mental faculties and reveal un- 
dreamt-of possibilities to me. ' I am the master 
of my fate.' I will treasure this divine gift of 
mind. I will cultivate this divine soil, and I will 
make the deserts of my mind blossom like the 
rose. ' ' 

It is well to remember that the best and noblest 
work is only the complete embodiment of thousands 
of petty details and a vast amount of trivial labor. 
Nothing worth doing can ever be performed with- 
out the habit of conscientious attention to the lit- 
tle things, which, taken together, make the whole 
structure of successful work. Not until the last de- 
tail has been attended to, can you see how noble 
are the results of your labors. In regard to the 
creative functions of the mind this is especially 
true. Progress is made so gradually that one is 
apt to lose heart and think the effort and care are 
not worth while. Whenever you get into such a 
frame of mind, remember that all great men have 



Every Man his own Mind-maker 37 

felt the same. The victories of Oliver Cromwell 
were achieved by painfully manufacturing troops 
out of raw citizens. Drill, discipline, and the in- 
spiration of the cause transformed these clodhop- 
pers into magnificent troops, as fine as any the 
world ever saw. When they routed the trained 
Eoyalist soldiers, snatching victory out of defeat, 
it was not superior but inferior training that 
gained the success, and it was not so much superior 
generalship as a greater inspiration of success 
that insured victory. The truth is that Cromwell 
inspired his troops with the idea of victory. The 
Puritans firmly believed that they were fighting the 
battles of the Lord, that He was on their side, and 
it was this conviction that gave strength to their 
arms and power to their armies. They refused to 
think of defeat, never allowed it to enter their 
minds. All they thought of was their sure knowl- 
edge of victory, and in that strong faith they went 
out and conquered. 

Keep before your mind the picture of what you 
intend to become. Tell yourself continually that 
mental training will enlarge your brain power and 
enable you to do great things. Remember al- 
ways that not one moment is ever wasted in the 
pursuit of knowledge. The more people a busi- 
ness man knows, the more scope he has for do- 
ing business. The circle of his customers and his 



38 Personal Power 

power of making money vary according to the ex- 
tent and value of his connection. It is the same 
with the acquisition of knowledge. The more in- 
formation you have, the more power have you for 
evolving great ideas. The process of mental 
training enables you to make use of that informa- 
tion, to store it in your mind, and to bring it forth 
whenever and wherever you want it. Keep ever in 
your mind the thought of the mental progress you 
will make from year to year, and you will never 
think the trouble is not worth while. Make a de- 
termination to practise mental culture every day, 
and let nothing deter you from it. The very act of 
determination and perseverance will strengthen 
your character and make you a greater force in the 
world. 

You will find, as time goes on, that you will 
begin to ask yourself questions about the things 
you put into your mind — the food you give it. You 
will want to know why you should read the best 
literature, and whether you like good books 
merely because they are best for your mind or 
because you really prefer them. At this stage of 
your mental progress you will find on experiment 
that you really do prefer the society of the im- 
mortals for their own sake. Good books inspire 
great thoughts. The masters of characterization 
and plot teach you life as it really is in all its 



Every Man his own Mind-maker 39 

varying phases. An author like George Mere- 
dith, or Henry James, writes in a style that is be- 
yond the understanding of the uncultured novel- 
reader. You cannot " skip " the works of such a 
writer. He makes you ponder over every sen- 
tence he writes, and exercises your brain to its 
full power. A course of George Meredith's books 
and Swinburne's poems may be recommended 
both for the mental exercise they provide and for 
the music of their language. 

Bead Macaulay's " Essays," and you will get 
a liberal education in literature and history, pre- 
sented in a clear and beautiful style and filling 
the mind with a critical appreciation of human 
work and progress. Read the Lives of such men 
as Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon, and learn how 
often they were near failure and only achieved 
victory through the force of their mental powers. 
Such reading will furnish you with encourage- 
ment to persevere with your own mental develop- 
ment; it will inspire you with noble thoughts and 
lofty ideals ; and it will convince you that you, too, 
can raise yourself above the mediocrity of every- 
day surroundings by giving yourself a noble life- 
aim and by learning for yourself how you can 
achieve it. 



CHAPTER IV 

SIMPLE IDEAS FOK MENTAL TKAINTNG 

" Thoughts shut up want air, 
And spoil, like bales unopened to the sun." 

Young. 

FEW people trouble to think properly. This 
is a sweeping statement, but it is true. One 
of the first things to occur to a man who is a real 
thinker is, how he can train his mind to enable him 
to reason to the best advantage. Every other day 
almost we hear of some new fad designed to in- 
crease our mental and physical efficiency. We take 
early walks before breakfast; we give up alcoholic 
drinks and cut down our smoking; we indulge in 
fast and rest cures, and from one extreme of living 
we go to another. All the practises mentioned may 
be good enough in themselves, but where do they 
lead the people who put them into force? They 
generally lead nowhere, for the reason that, if any 
betterment of health is obtained, the individual does 
not know how to turn it to account by taking ad- 
vantage of the increased mental activity which re- 
sults from his bodily well-being. 

40 



Simple Ideas for Mental Training 41 

The mistake people make is to take account only 
of their physical fitness, thinking that mental fit- 
ness will follow as a matter of course. A healthy 
mind is even more desirable than a healthy body. 
People can work under the severest physical dis- 
abilities; they can even enjoy life tho subjected 
to constant suffering. It does not matter how 
healthy you are if your mind is weak in the sense 
that it is not trained. As soon as a man gets the 
habit of thinking properly he begins to search for 
the means to bring his mental capacity to its full 
development. Having done this, he wants to keep 
his mind fit, so that it will work smoothly, quickly 
and accurately, enabling him to sustain prolonged 
mental effort without fatigue. 

The mind requires exercise as much as the 
body does. You may think you are exercising 
your mental faculties continually because you 
have to think all day long. You might as well 
argue that the continual movements of the body 
are sufficient in themselves to keep it in perfect 
condition. What is desirable in both mind and 
body is an all-round excellence, whereby all the 
faculties and muscles and so forth are developed 
to perfection, and no one of them developed at 
the expense of another. The thinking man will 
diet and exercise himself not merely for the pur- 
pose of attaining perfect physical health, but also 



42 Personal Power 

because perfect health enables him to work better 
with his mind. According to the Greeks, " Health 
and intellect are the two blessings of life," and a 
healthy mind in a healthy body is what the 
thoughtful man desires, because it is the ideal 
combination which enables him to secure all that 
he really needs in the world to make him prosper- 
ous and happy. 

If bodily health and activity are important to 
enable a man to perform his work and follow his 
pursuits, how important must be a state of mental 
fitness in view of the fact that the mind governs 
the body in the smallest and greatest things that 
affect our progress in life! The more mental 
power we possess, the greater will be the results 
of our work. However clever you may be, you 
need to keep your mind right up to " concert 
pitch," in order that your work may be 
thoroughly efficient, and that you may more easily 
absorb knowledge and create ideas out of your 
store of thoughts. Some men have a faculty for 
absorbing knowledge; they are veritable walking 
encyclopedias, yet very often they are compara- 
tive failures in life. Other men, possessing not 
a tithe of their intellectual capacity, easily out- 
strip them in the race for success. The reason is, 
that no matter how much knowledge a man may 
possess, it is valueless to him unless he knows 



Simple Ideas for Mental Training 43 

how to use it. To make your mind a storehouse 
of knowledge is to turn it into a lumber-room un- 
less you actively employ that knowledge from day 
to day. 

So long as you keep your mind active by judi- 
cious mental exercises, you need not worry about 
ways of using the knowledge you acquire. The 
mind works automatically when once it is started. 
Remember that it needs food just as the body 
does, and the more food you give it the more men- 
tal strength you will have to draw upon. Eemem- 
ber also that the more food you give it in the 
shape of facts and general knowledge, the more 
exercise it will need to prevent mental indiges- 
tion, which manifests itself in an inability to 
know how to use the information that is collected. 

When you come across a dull person you 
have a splendid opportunity for exercising your 
mind. Do not confuse dulness with stupidity. The 
chances are that the dulness is mental indigestion. 
Your exercise is to dissipate that dulness by find- 
ing the subject in which the person is most inter- 
ested. It may be theaters, it may be gardening, 
it may be chemistry, or reading, or sport of some 
kind. Draw upon your knowledge of these sub- 
jects, and try them judiciously one after the other. 
We are all interested in some things more than in 
others. Seneca says, " When things have taken 



44 Personal Power 

possession of the mind, words are plentiful." 
There can be no better exercise for the mind than 
to " draw out " a dull or shy person by suggest- 
ing new points of view to rouse his enthusiasm in 
his favorite subject, and to keep his interest sus- 
tained so that he will forget his shyness in en- 
thusiastic speech. 

If the private discussion of politics has any 
value at all, it is not so much because two people 
can exchange views until one convinces the other, 
as because it exercises the mind and at the same 
time feeds it with new facts. It is, perhaps, a 
dangerous exercise for people who do not under- 
stand each other very well, but there is a varia- 
tion of it which is almost as efficacious, and has 
the advantage that you argue with yourself alone. 
It is simply to make up your mind on political 
subjects, not by listening to other people's argu- 
ments, but by getting your facts from books, and, 
so far as you can, at first-hand from the people 
best able to supply you. Take the case of Protec- 
tion v. Tariff Reform as an example. Doubtless 
you are prepared to say all sorts of things about 
the respective attitudes of the Protectionists or 
Tariff Reformers, according as you agree with or 
differ from them; but could you put up a case for 
your own belief, and support it with facts and ar- 
guments for five minutes against some one who had 



Simple Ideas for Mental Training 45 

studied the question carefully? Get a handbook 
stating the case for Protection, and another one on 
Tariff Beform, and analyze the arguments for 
yourself just as if the authors had each prepared 
a case to submit to your arbitration. When 
you have analyzed the arguments, give them all 
the most careful consideration, weigh them one 
against another, and give your verdict. This will 
enable you to write down a judgment on the prob- 
lem as it has been presented to you, and whenever 
you read new facts in the daily papers, or hear 
them from friends, you will be able to argue intelli- 
gently, and adjust your opinions, not in the light 
of prejudices, but according to your deliberate 
reason. 

Try this specific mental exercise for yourself. 
Determine to devote an hour a day to it until you 
have given your judgment. It will be well worth 
while. In addition to providing you with an hour 's 
good mental exercise a day, it will get you into the 
habit of appraising facts and reasoning upon them, 
and it will lead you to the practise of deciding 
problems for yourself, instead of taking the opin- 
ions of the people you meet or of the newspaper 
you read. 

Another mental exercise that is well worth culti- 
vating is the habit of making speeches. You need 
not necessarily make them in public, or even to 



46 Personal Power 

your friends. Make a five-minute speech to your- 
self as you walk home from the station at night. 
If there is no one near, say it aloud. Take any 
subject you like, and make your speech to yourself. 
The value of this practise is that it teaches you 
to think slowly, carefully and systematically. We 
are too apt to let our thoughts run haphazard 
through our minds. We think of nothing in partic- 
ular when we might be finding out how much or 
how little we know of any definite subject by the 
simple means of making a little speech about it. 
This plan also helps to promote ideas. You have 
to think out arguments and dig in your memory 
for facts, and you will find if you persevere with 
the practise that all your facts will keep fresh in 
your mind, and by and by will suggest themselves 
automatically when you require them. 

Do not let your mind get slack. It is a great 
possession and a great trust. You can store it with 
riches that none can take from you, and by exercis- 
ing it carefully you can use its wealth from day to 
day, and, using it, will acquire new treasure, new 
power, and an incomparably greater efficiency of 
mind and body. 



CHAPTER V 

THE POWER OF SYMPATHY 

" The secret sympathy, 
The silver Imfc, the silken tie, 
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, 
In body and in soul can bind." 

Scott. 

WHEN the wireless message flashes across 
the ocean, it is recorded on an instrument 
so delicately adjusted that it is said to be ' ' in sym- 
pathy " with the dispatching instrument at the 
other end. Unless the two instruments are tuned 
to be in the most perfect harmony with each other, 
the message cannot be received intelligibly. The 
human mind is much more delicately adjusted than 
the most fragile instrument that man ever created. 
It contains forces more potent than any force that 
man uses. The unique place occupied by man in 
the universe is due solely to his mental powers. 
Many beasts are stronger physically than man; 
yet he rules them. He harnesses the torrent to 
produce electricity. In these days of aviation 
and ocean travel, it can truly be said of man that 
he " rides the whirlwind and directs the storm.' ' 

47 



48 Personal Power 

Only a few years ago, men did not dream that 
they could transmit messages through space with- 
out wires. The forces of Nature were ready to be 
harnessed, but man had to gain knowledge of the 
way to use these powers before " wireless " be- 
came possible. It would be strange indeed if two 
machines can be so perfectly adjusted that they 
can receive and transmit messages across thou- 
sands of miles of space, and so delicate a thing as 
the human brain should be incapable of doing the 
same. As a matter of fact, we know that the brain 
can act in a similar manner. There are cases on 
record of people who were so perfectly in sympathy 
with each other that they knew if either was ill, no 
matter how far apart they may have been. At 
times, in the course of ordinary conversation, the 
same thought will flash across two people, and they 
will make the same remark at the same time. 
People who know each other very well can often 
detect what is passing in each other's minds. All 
these instances go to prove that the brain has this 
subtle power of transmitting thought if we only 
knew how to develop and use it. 

There is no need for us, in our everyday lives, 
to attempt to project thought across space. That 
is a matter for scientists to investigate, and for us 
to do so would be as useful as for a man to attempt 
to construct a flying-machine without the most ele- 



The Power of Sympathy 49 

mentary knowledge of the science of aviation. 
What we can do, and what we should do, is to find 
out what our powers are, and use them so that we 
may develop their usefulness. 

We know that in the case of two wireless instru- 
ments the condition for sending and receiving 
intelligible messages is that they should be in per- 
fect sympathy. In human affairs, sympathy is the 
quality which enables us first of allto understand 
what is passing in another person's brain, and 
then to make our own feelings felt so that they can 
be appreciated as well. 

All the qualities of the mind depend upon one 
another to a large extent. For instance, knowl- 
edge of human nature, which is gained by social 
intercourse, is necessary to complete sympathy of 
feeling. We cannot sympathize deeply with a 
man's sorrows unless we can understand what his 
emotions are. If we sympathize in a general sort 
of way, we cannot know that our sympathy has any 
effect unless we can understand in some measure 
what the other person's thoughts are. 

Sympathy is generally regarded as merely a 
benevolent sort of sentiment evoked by the sorrows 
of others. Its meaning, according to the dic- 
tionary, is " a fellow feeling, compassion." The 
second definition is the one usually accepted. In 
reality, the first has the wider meaning, and when 



50 Personal Power 

we ask ourselves what sympathy really is and what 
it does, we recognize that this is the definition that 
has the most practical significance. 

Our own mind is for our own use. We cannot 
exert any of its power without affecting ourselves. 
Feelings of anger affect us physically ; indeed, they 
hurt us and do not harm the object of our dis- 
pleasure. There are what may be termed positive 
and negative forces of mind. Active sympathy is a 
positive quality; placidity and indifference are 
negative. When we exercise a benevolent feeling 
of mind it has some practical use, and this is 
clearly understood in the case of sympathy. 

Some people seem to pride themselves on their 
placidity of mind. The sorrows of others pass 
them by without affecting them. In a way, this is 
good, because grief has a physical effect on the 
body and causes actual loss of physical energy. 
Sympathy, however, is a good sentiment. We 
were meant to be compassionate ; and if a habit of 
mind is good, it must produce some good effect on 
our lives. 

The value of sympathy lies in its power to har- 
monize minds so that one can become susceptible 
to the influence of another's thoughts. You will 
find that the cultivation of sympathy will draw 
people toward you. They instinctively open their 
hearts to a sympathetic listener. When two brains 



The Power of Sympathy 51 

are " tuned up " to sympathy, they will as natu- 
rally convey and receive messages as the wireless 
instruments can transmit and accept them. The 
action of the telegraphic transmitter is to set in 
motion certain waves which act upon the receiver, 
wherever that may be. The action of the brain is 
similar. We do, in fact, project thought waves 
which are capable of penetrating space and affect- 
ing a brain that is in sympathy with our own. If 
two minds are in perfect accord, there is a double 
force at work between them. Not only is there the 
actual power of the spoken word, but also the 
power of the projected thought which reaches the 
brain as surely as the sound waves reach it 
through the ear. For this reason, a mind that is in 
perfect harmony with another will gather meanings 
and thoughts that are not actually expressed in 
words. The spoken word is merely an indication of 
the complete thought that is in the mind, and only a 
sympathetic brain will gather the whole of the mes- 
sage. 

It is easy to see that the gift of sympathy devel- 
oped to perfection must exercise a very beneficial 
influence even upon the most practical affairs of 
life. If it will enable you to gain a man's complet- 
est thought, it must necessarily help you in any 
dealings you may have with him. Half knowledge 
cannot be so helpful as complete knowledge. A man 



52 Personal Power 

may hold back part of his thought in conversation 
because he is shy, or because he is diffident, or for 
many other reasons. If you can gather the thought 
that is withheld, you are so much the wiser; and 
you will surely gather it if your sympahty is per- 
fect enough. 

In another way, the power of sympathy is a prac- 
tical help in life. People with whom you can 
sympathize fully are people whom it is good for 
you to know. If your own sympathies are blunted, 
you cannot give back what another may give you, 
and you may thereby lose a good friend. If you 
know your sympathies are acute and sensitive, and 
you feel no corresponding sympathy from any 
given person you may chance to meet, you can be 
sure that you have few thoughts in common, and 
have no good to gain from him. The truth of this 
fact is very well illustrated in married life. People 
who have lived together for many years have often 
been observed to grow like each other. This is 
perfectly natural to anyone who has studied the 
potent forces of the mind. We know that our 
thoughts affect us physically, and that our minds 
are consequently reflected in our bodies. It is per- 
fectly natural, then, that a married couple, in per- 
fect sympathy with each other, transmitting similar 
thoughts to each other, and thus developing the 
same habits of mind, should find the same physical 



The Power of Sympathy 53 

changes taking place in their features. Where 
there is no sympathy between husband and wife 
there is unhappiness. Perfect love must include 
perfect sympathy; indeed, when passion has died, 
love remains only because it is perfect sympathy. 

What we call instinct is, in reality, the sensitive- 
ness of the mind that enables it to receive the im- 
pression of another's thought. It is reasonable to 
suppose that an evil thought can cause a discord in 
a sensitive brain, and set up a state of antipathy. 
If it is true that good thoughts draw people to- 
gether, it must be equally true that antagonistic 
thoughts will send them apart. The sympathetic 
person can safely trust his instincts. If a mind 
that is profoundly sympathetic cannot awaken an 
echoing sentiment in another brain, it is clear 
enough that there is antagonism and an absence of 
that harmony without which there cannot be true 
trust and friendship. 

Sympathy is the key that unlocks the door of 
every heart. You cannot get at the best of friend- 
ship, or understand the meaning of life, without 
this gift. It solves many a riddle of human nature 
that otherwise would remain unanswered. Sym- 
pathy is not a virtue possest by a few gifted in- 
dividuals only. It is a part of the mental equip- 
ment of every one of us, but it is more highly de- 
veloped in some than in others. Clearly, it is a gift 



54 Personal Power 

that is well worth cultivating until it becomes as 
natural as breathing. The physical aids to the 
cultivation of sympathy are in the eyes and the 
voice. A clear, understanding gaze and a soft tone 
of voice help the mind to transmit its sympathetic 
force. Get into the habit of looking at things from 
the point of view of the person you are talking to. 
Do not accept his facts or his thoughts if they do 
not agree with your own deductions, but reject his 
views only after you have understood their sig- 
nificance. This habit will act as a continual test of 
your own thoughts. It will broaden your own 
mind, and it will enable you to appreciate the out- 
look of every class of society. There can be no 
mutual action without mutual sympathy. The 
golden rule of life is to make allowances for every- 
one but yourself. If you do that, others will make 
allowances for you, and they will not find much 
difficulty in doing so. Your own life will never be 
happy without sympathy. Give it to others, and 
they will give it back to you. It will not be a case 
of 

" Laugh, and the world laughs with you, 
Weep, and you weep alone." 

If you do weep, others will share your sorrow; 
but the truth is, you will be so full of the happiness 
of others that you will have little room in your 
mind for anything but joy. 



The Power of Sympathy 55 

Contact with other people exercises the sense 
of sympathy. You exchange thoughts with your 
friends, and you learn things by doing so. You 
give them sympathy, and they respond to it. 
Albert Chevalier once told me that the influence of 
an audience upon his acting was most remarkable. 
If they were appreciative and showed it, he acted 
his best. If they were lukewarm, he grew luke- 
warm in his efforts. ' ' If they only knew, ' ' he said, 
" how their applause acts on me, they would be 
able to draw my best out of me, and they would 
gain the greater pleasure. ' ' 

Sympathy broadens the mind. Some people 
would be bored if they found themselves in the com- 
pany of the whole of the members of a learned 
society. Merely because the conversation was 
beyond them, they would refuse to be interested in 
it. Brains are not the monopoly of any section of 
society. You will find intelligence everywhere, and 
wherever you find it you will be the better for 
sharpening your own wits against it. Christ came 
from a humble rank of society. If we are to believe 
contemporary literature, the poet Keats was con- 
sidered a bore by many people, when he was merely 
shy. Every person you meet has the same divine 
element in him that you have. If you will only 
sympathize with every individual you will be sure 
to find it, and in finding it you will lose self-con- 



56 Personal Power 

sciousness, you will enlarge your mental outlook, 
and you will become a worthy member of society. 

We can only get the full value out of life by pos- 
sessing the widest sympathies. If we can share 
the joys of others we increase our own joys. You 
can get something good out of every person you 
meet if your sympathies are large enough. Unless 
you can enter into the minds of other people of 
varying tastes and points of view, you can never 
understand what life is. You may read books, you 
may go to plays, you may travel, and you may 
theorize in your mind, but you can have no real 
practical knowledge of life until you understand 
human nature. All the books in the world cannot 
teach you so much as the book of life, and in under- 
standing life you will understand books, plays, and 
places as you never understood them before. 

There can be no doubt that it is the duty of each 
of us to take his part in society. This duty is a 
double one. We owe it to society and we owe it to 
ourselves. The key-note of life is duty to one's 
neighbor, and our neighbors are all about us. 
There are people we meet who need our sympathy ; 
there are others who need our help ; there are others 
who need encouragement. In every gathering of 
people we should be cheerful, bright and interest- 
ing, not only to please them, but because by being 
so we can draw them out and do good to ourselves. 



The Power of Sympathy 57 

It is our duty to shine in society in a quiet way, 
so that we may give pleasure to those with whom 
we are brought into contact. Life, to be complete, 
must be many-sided. We can learn to look on the 
humorous side of things from one person; we can 
learn patience from another. One man can teach 
us optimism ; another can teach us to love literature. 
The scientist can show us how to appreciate the 
marvels of Nature. The child, even, can teach us 
faith, trust, love, and the habit of looking on the 
bright side of things and forgetting our troubles 
and disappointments. Some people can get endless 
pleasure out of a garden. Other people can tell you 
things about music, or art, that will make a concert 
or a picture gallery a revelation to you. You your- 
self extract the best out of the books you read. 
Other people do the same, and by talking with them 
and drawing them out you can learn all about life 
and all about books. You can learn what the experi- 
ence of others has been, and in times of crisis you 
will be able to profit by that experience. By study- 
ing others and pleasing them you will learn how to 
manage men, and you will know better how to rule 
yourself. 

Eemember, you will get from the world just what 
you give it. If you give sympathy, trust, hope, and 
brightness, you will get all these in return. You 
will find that life is not merely your life, but the 



58 Personal Power 

Divine life that permeates the whole universe. You 
can forget your own disappointments in the tri- 
umphs of others. From others you will gain 
courage and strengthen your self-reliance. You 
were not meant to stand alone in the world. There 
is help and encouragement for you to be drawn 
from others. What you need to strengthen your 
own individual weakness, you will find in those you 
meet. All you have to do is to give abundantly of 
your gift and of your sympathies, and you will 
always receive the same in return. You will know 
to whom to turn for strength, to whom for wisdom, 
and to whom for joy. All the people you meet are 
sent to you that you may learn from them. You are 
to learn all you can, so that you, in your turn, can 
serve those who wish to learn from you. Life is a 
great cooperative society. We depend upon each 
other and we should help and sympathize with each 
other. The aim of life may well be exprest in 
Kipling's words: 

" Help me to need no help from men, 
That I may help such men as need." 

We can only help by being wise. We can only, 
become wise by learning from others. We can only 
learn by sympathizing. Without sympathy we are 
without all that life holds most dear. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TYRANNY OF DOUBT 

" Our doubts are traitors, 
And make us lose the good we oft might win, 
By fearing to attempt." 

Shakespeare. 

"f B AO the timid and hesitating," says Scott, 
JL " everything is impossible, because it 
seems so." The converse is exprest in our Eng- 
lish proverb, " Nothing is impossible to a willing 
mind. ' ' Doubt in everyday life is as great a crime 
as fear in a soldier. If we could only get into the 
habit of regarding it with the same scorn that the 
fighting man shows to fear, we should immeasur- 
ably increase our achievements in every depart- 
ment of our physical and mental activity. The 
bravest soldiers are not insensible to fear. They 
are more afraid to yield to it than to shun death. 
It is recorded of numberless men that in war-time 
they seemed to bear charmed lives. Amid a hail of 
shot and shell they were unharmed. This merely 
goes to prove that we are prone to exaggerate our 
dangers. The soldier advances into what he con- 
siders certain death. To his view, nothing can live 

59 



60 Personal Power 

in the range of fire that he has to traverse. Yet he 
not only lives, bnt is unscathed. It must have 
seemed to the Light Brigade, starting to charge the 
guns at Balaklava, that it was impossible for any 
of them to return alive. We know that, tho the 
majority fell, many lived to tell the tale. In all the 
records of bright and glorious deeds and splendid 
achievement we read clearly the lesson that the ap- 
parently impossible yields submissively to vigorous 
effort. 

The limit of our achievements is the power of 
our own thought. If you have a healthy ambition, 
or a burning desire to accomplish great deeds, be 
sure that your bodily faculties are capable of 
achieving it. The things you cannot think of, you 
cannot accomplish. None but a Napoleon could 
conceive in his mind the gigantic projects that he 
carried out successfully. Had Napoleon doubted 
his powers at any moment, that instant he must 
have failed. Big thoughts are inevitably accom- 
panied by an adequate capacity for realizing them 
in practical effort. 

The strength of a chain is the strength of its 
weakest link. Doubt is the weak link that paralyzes 
many a strong brain. It is appalling at times to 
stand at the exits of a great railway station in the 
morning and watch the thousands of people surg- 
ing out to compete with one another for their daily 



The Tyranny of Doubt 61 

bread. One would almost think that it was impos- 
sible to strive successfully against so many. Many 
of them are more talented than you or I. Many 
who are more talented than their fellows are either 
on the same low level of living or are even occupy- 
ing subordinate positions to those who are mentally 
their inferiors. We all of us know people who, we 
feel, are less capable than we are, who are, never- 
theless, more successful in life. The truth is, that 
those who rise are those who never doubt their 
own powers to succeed. 

The mind grows on what it feeds upon. If you 
allow doubt to occupy any place at all in your mind, 
that doubt will grow there. A little hesitation will 
grow into a big doubt, and the habit of doubt will 
surely result in death to self-reliance and good-by 
to success. Napoleon said that attack was the 
safest method of defense. Out with all your doubts 
and fears ! They are unworthy of your mind, which 
should be in harmony with the Infinite. No task 
can ever come your way that you have not the 
power within you to fulfil. Doctors say that the 
human frame is never called upon to suffer more 
pain than it can bear. If the pain grows beyond 
the limit of human endurance, we lapse into uncon- 
sciousness. The same is true of the mind. Nothing 
is asked of us in this world that we are not capable 
of giving. 



62 Personal Powei 

As the mind will feed upon doubt, so it will feed 
upon hope. When doubt comes into the mind, 
throw it out. Do not parley with it, do not admit 
any other consideration than that it has no business 
there. Say, * ' I can do this — I will do it, ' ' and you 
will succeed. So long as you admit the slightest 
possibility of failure, so long there is an influence 
in your mind that is preventing you putting all your 
energies into your task. 

The mental medicine for doubt is hope. The 
treatment for lack of self-confidence is perhaps 
easier than the application of antidotes for any 
other kind of mental deficiency. Doubt is a nega- 
tive state of mind. The antidote is hope and deter- 
mination. Be positive in all your thoughts. When 
a task lies before you, say, " I will do this," instead 
of " I will try to do this." Do not ask yourself 
any questions about your capacity, such as " Can 
I do this? " Affirm positively to yourself that it 
lies within your powers to do what you have to 
do. Negative thoughts are antagonistic to action, 
and without action there can be nothing accom- 
plished. Positive thoughts, the will to do, are in- 
centives to action, and the brain thrives upon them. 

In our self-training we are to accustom our- 
selves to all those habits of mind which will be 
beneficial to us in life. The very habit of affirming 
our power to accomplish will strengthen our mental 



The Tyranny of Doubt 63 

force. Just as the magnifying glass can be used to 
concentrate the rays of the sun upon one burning 
point, so the mind can be strengthened by the habit 
of affirmation to concentrate its whole powers on 
the task in hand. If the sun's rays are weak, the 
magnifying glass produces only a faint heat. If 
your mind is weak, it cannot concentrate on your 
work with that enthusiasm and power which con- 
quer all difficulty. 

The habit of positiveness keeps the mind in a 
constant state of power and confidence. It enables 
you to attack problems that would daunt a doubt- 
ing person, and to overcome them successfully. 
The more you undertake and accomplish the more 
your mind will grow. It is said of some people that 
they cannot see farther than their noses. When we 
say that of anyone, we mean that he or she has a 
narrow mental outlook that never expands and 
reveals the promised land of possibilities. Unless 
we know what we can achieve, we can have no suc- 
cess, because our efforts must be aimless. We must 
then be entirely at the mercy of the world, and un- 
der the direction of others with stronger minds 
than our own. Of what use, in that case, is all our 
talk of free-will'? Free-will is useless to us if we 
are not prepared to use our wills and direct our 
destinies. 

So soon as we realize that the only limit to our 



64 Personal Power 

achievements lies within the compass of our own 
minds, we are on the high road to success. As our 
ambitions increase, so our powers will increase 
correspondingly. We may not all reach the top- 
most pinnacles of fame, because some must serve 
while others command. Our creed ought to be that 
the lowest form of work must be done by the learn- 
ers, and that as we progress in experience, so we 
shall advance in our work. In these enlightened 
days, most of us reject the doctrine of fatalism, be- 
lieving that we are " the masters of our fate, the 
captains of our souls. ' ' Believing that, it is illogi- 
cal of us to act as tho we thought that some men 
were born to greatness and others to lowliness. 
We were all born to greatness. Many people look 
to be great only in the world to come, seeking in 
Eternity the reward for their labors on earth. 
That is a negative state of mind, which should be 
replaced by the positive antidote. Our success is 
not in the world to come alone, but is meant for our 
present state also. Only by believing that we can- 
not succeed shall we be held back from our just 
place in the " scheme of things entire." 

No man has a right to be a failure. Each of us 
has sufficient power within him to enable him to 
satisfy his every want. If you are unsuccessful, it 
is only because of some negative quality of mind 
that prevents you putting forth all your energies. 



The Tyranny of Doubt 65 

Doubt is like a man in a boat pulling the wrong way. 
The instant you turn it out of your mind your ener- 
gies are concentrated on your work, and you are 
running on the full tide of success. To doubt your 
own powers is to insult the Creator who gave them 
to you and ordained your work in life. Away with 
such an idea, and refuse it admittance to the com- 
pany of your thoughts. " Doubts are traitors." 
Treat them as such, or they will destroy your men- 
tal citadel. They are the creatures of your own 
imagination, and you create them yourself. Man 
was given dominion over all the earth solely because 
of the powers of his mind. Range up your facul- 
ties in battle array. Turn out your weak units (the 
chief amongst them, doubt) and go forth to con- 
quer. 

In any time of crisis a man is thrown back upon 
his own individual resources. In eases of illness, 
not only does his recovery depend upon his reserve 
of strength, but upon his will-power. We all know 
cases in which the individual has been given up by 
the doctor; he has determined not to die, and by 
sheer force of will has hung on to the vital thread 
of life until the reaction has come and he has ulti- 
mately recovered. Life is a series of crises. If 
you will only take the trouble to study successful 
men, you will come to see that they are superior to 
their fellows not so much in ability or industry 



66 Personal Power 

as in tenacity of purpose. They never doubt their 
power to succeed. 

A big employer of labor recently said to me: 
" We never have any vacancies in our business. 
As soon as one man drops out there is always an- 
other ready to take his place. But we are always 
willing to create posts for good men. The men we 
want are those with self-reliance, who can take 
responsibility on their own shoulders without refer- 
ring every difficulty to us. ' ' 

At times one is tempted to lose faith in one's 
own abilities. Things may continually go wrong, 
business may get bad, things may look hopeless. 
Such times come to all men in business, and the 
man who fights on is the man who succeeds. At 
such a time the best help is a good friend. He is 
not the best friend who will pull you out of your 
difficulties. The best friend is he who can show you 
how to do it yourself. If you have no such friend, 
your reserve of strength and will must answer the 
same purpose. Determine to succeed. The Bishop 
of London once said : ' ' No man is a failure until 
he gives up." The British Navy has a tradition 
which is exprest in the words, " Carry on." 
You must " carry on " in your business career, 
through all doubts, through all difficulties, and 
through all despair. There never was a position 
so hopeless that it could defeat a brave man. The 



The Tyranny of Doubt 67 

old saying, " God helps those who help them- 
selves," is as true as any words ever were. In my 
own limited experience I have time and again found 
myself in situations of such difficulty that it seemed 
impossible there could be a way out. But every 
time a way out has opened itself up, and my ex- 
perience has taught me this : That however hope- 
less a task may seem, if you but ' ' carry on, ' ' using 
your faculties to guide you to safe methods, the 
way out will appear to you. 

Things sometimes seem to hang fire until you 
are ready for them. Perils that seem to be immi- 
nent wait until you are strong enough to overcome 
them. Over all your perils, some inscrutable Provi- 
dence seems to hover to guard you and aid you so 
long as you " carry on." A man once said to me 
when I was downhearted : ' ' Trouble is a big bully. 
Tackle it and it runs away. Eun from it and it 
will overwhelm you." I think it is Emerson who 
says : * ' In the solitude to which every man is al- 
ways returning, he has a sanity and revelations, 
which, in his passage into new worlds, he will 
carry with him. Never mind the ridicule, never 
mind the defeat; up again, old heart! it seems to 
say — there is victory yet for all justice." You 
cannot do better than take this for your motto: 
" Up again, old heart ! ' ' When you are in despair, 
it seems like the voice of a friend urging you on 



68 Personal Power 

to new energies : ' * Up again, old heart ! ' ' Get 
the idea into your mind that you are made for suc- 
cess. It will then become easier for you to will 
yourself to succeed. Never admit the possibility 
of failure. Away with doubt! Accept your set- 
backs only as incitements to put forth more 
thought, more energy. 

You will always notice in successful men an ele- 
ment of power which is most impressive. For 
want of a better term, we call it personality. When 
you talk of a man 's personality or individuality, or 
whatever other name you choose to apply, you re- 
fer to that definite mental force which all men 
possess, which some have more strongly developed 
than others, but which all men can cultivate. The 
other man's job always looks easier than our own. 
I have intimate friends in business whose incomes 
are thousands a year. I have others whose in- 
comes run into hundreds. Remember this: The 
man who has a salary of a thousand a year has got 
to earn it. One of my friends once said to me : " It 
is easier to justify a salary of a hundred a year than 
to justify one running into thousands." That is 
an obvious fact when you come to think of it. You 
know that the Christian standard is ' ' full measure 
prest down and running over." Translated into 
business terms that means that for every dollar you 
earn you must give back to your employer not 



The Tyranny of Doubt 69 

merely one dollar of labor, but at least one dollar 
and something over; and if you can give him two 
dollars' value for the one dollar he gives you, 
you are justifying your salary and your con- 
science, and are then on the high road to success. 

Our business lives are divided into three distinct 
groups. In the first we prepare for business by 
education. In the second we find out what our par- 
ticular bent is. In the third we work along the lines 
that are most suitable, and our success depends 
upon our industry, upon our determination, and 
upon our grit. You have some particular talent. 
You must find out what it is, and you must develop 
it. Do not put it in the ground, as it were, and leave 
it there. The field must be cultivated for the har- 
vest, and the brain must be cultivated for the busi- 
ness harvest. There is nothing more satisfactory 
than to glance back over a year, and note an in- 
crease in experience and in mental power. 

It may be that your talent is of the non-produc- 
tive order. For instance, a bookkeeper is a non- 
productive element in a business. He can never 
command the same salary as a salesman, whose rec- 
ord is clearly seen from the annual profit he 
makes. All the same, the bookkeeper can lose his 
firm money by carelessness, just as he can save it 
by care; and a man who can show his employer 
how to cut costs, and how to run his business sys- 



70 Personal Power 

tematically to save him time and labor, is on the 
high road to management, with a comfortable 
salary and very possibly a partnership. 

Never think that good work is nnappreciated. 
The best schemes a business man can evolve depend 
for their success upon the active cooperation of his 
staff, from the highest to the lowest. The very 
messenger-boy can cause failure by being late with 
the delivery of a letter. Work is largely its own 
reward. You may have read the lines : 

" To set the cause above renown, 
To love the game beyond the prize." 

That would make a good business creed for you 
and me. You must " play the game," not for the 
money it brings but for its own sake. 

When you find a successful man you find a 
worker. He works hard when he has no need to 
work. He works because he loves work, and the 
reason he has succeeded is because he has always 
loved it. 

A traveler once told me that in certain parts 
of Spain, if you go into a shop and ask if an 
article is in stock, the shopkeeper will say, " I don't 
know. Come back to-morrow and I will tell you." 
No man ever made the best use of his talents by put- 
ting off his work. " Give us this day our daily 
bread," says the Lord's Prayer. If we ask for, 



The Tyranny of Doubt 71 

and expect, this prompt supply from the Creator, 
we should yield back our prompt daily work in 
return. No matter how strong your will, nor how 
high your hope, your mind is unbalanced and in- 
complete unless you use your faculties vigorously 
and conscientiously. To-morrow brings its own 
duties. To-day is the appointed time. Throw off 
sloth and doubt. The energy and the work of the 
world wait upon your effort. Shall they wait be- 
cause you may wish to be idle, or because you fear 
to attempt? If so, you too must expect to wait for 
your ' ' daily bread " ; or, in other words, for your 
Success. 



CHAPTER VII 

STUDY 

" Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's 
writings; so you shall come easily by what others have labored 
hard for. Prefer knowledge to wealth, for one is transitory, the 
other perpetual." 

Socbates. 

IT is a condition of the enjoyment of power that 
it should be increased by use. You cannot 
live upon your mental capital so well as upon the 
income which it brings you; and just as in com- 
merce the more you put by the bigger your income 
will be, so with your mental power, the more you 
can add to it the more force you can exert. 

Nothing worth doing can be accomplished with- 
out study. The man who leaves his mental work 
behind him and devotes himself entirely to plea- 
sure after office hours, must remain a routine 
worker all his life. You must know your business 
thoroughly before you can size up its possibilities. 
You cannot plan big projects and carry them 
through unless you are familiar with all the detail 
work which will be necessary. Some men, by per- 
forming routine well, rise to comfortable positions, 
but they remain routine workers. The captains of 

72 



Study 73 

industry are recruited from the thinkers, the men 
who dream dreams and then convert them into 
practical realities. 

Consider the meanings of the word " study." 
Here are some of them: " To bestow pains 
upon "; " to apply the mind to "; " to examine 
closely, in order to learn thoroughly "; " to form 
and arrange by thought ' ' ; " to con over. ' ' There 
are others to the same point, but you will notice 
that all these varying meanings suggest the active 
and well-considered employment of the brain to 
achieve a definite purpose. Taking the meanings 
in their order, we find that the word demands care, 
an effort of the mind, close attention, system and 
reflection. 

Now, the purpose of study is to acquire some 
knowledge which will be useful. If you are in busi- 
ness, study that business and learn all you can 
about it. You can study books on commercial 
correspondence, on law, on bookkeeping, or you can 
study shorthand and typewriting. If you have a 
knowledge of law, what is there to prevent you 
reading for the Bar? You can save money for 
your fees, and you can get coached, then you can 
take your examinations one by one, and finally get 
called. It will be much better to study definitely 
for the Bar than just to study law in a desultory 
fashion. You can be sure that if you get called your 



74 Personal Power 

employers will be very glad to make use of your 
special qualifications. 

If you are an accountant, study for the examina- 
tions; or if your firm advertises largely, take a 
course of advertising lessons. Whatever branch 
of learning you take up, study it thoroughly in 
such a way that you will get expert guidance. If 
you want to study art or literature, there are 
plenty of lectures which will give you what you 
want. If you live in a town where these facilities 
are not available, hunt round for subscribers and 
get a course of Correspondence Lectures through 
the winter. Even if you are only keen on some 
hobby, study it. There are endless possibilities in 
photography which will well repay careful study. 
There are fretwork, carpentry, engineering, and a 
score of other things upon which you can use your 
mind. You have some particular talent that an 
experienced teacher can develop for you. Study 
with a teacher if you can, or, if that is not possible, 
take in the paper that deals with your hobby and 
ask the editor to advise you upon a choice of books 
that will teach you all you want to know about it. 

If a thing is worth using your mental effort 
upon, it is worth the full force of your mind. I 
want to fire your ambition to excel in everything 
you undertake. Do not be content to know just as 
much as the average man. If you are you can 



Study 75 

never be anything above the average. Just a little 
more trouble, a little more thought, and a little 
more effort are needed to raise you above the 
crowd, and the knowledge that you are better and 
stronger will be a joy to you that these others can 
never know. 

You must study in a systematic fashion. Do not 
attack the work with abundant enthusiasm which 
grows less and less as time goes on, until you 
lose all interest in your study and then drop it alto- 
gether. Sit down in cold-blood and plan out a time- 
table for work. Set aside as much time a day as 
you can manage. Then halve that time and knock 
out every day of the week except, say, two. You 
will then start easily at your work, and will set 
yourself a task that will be well within your 
powers. If you try to do too much to start with, 
you will get tired and lose your interest in what 
you are doing ; but if you start quietly, the chances 
are that you will grudge the evenings when you do 
not study and will want to use them too. It is not 
the rush work which makes you tired that counts, 
but the steady elt'ort that means so much and 
accomplishes so much when totaled up at the end 
of a year. 

A man has every encouragement to study. 
Every small addition to his knowledge is a jump- 
ing-ofi ground to further information, which again 



76 Personal Power 

will lead to a greater increase of mental capacity. 
You cannot avoid the intermediate stages of the 
journey, but, on the other hand, if you travel only 
a few paces each day, you will have gained a tre- 
mendous amount of ground by the end of the year, 
leaving your less prudent rivals far behind you. 

So long as you neglect study you remain on a 
level with the average man, tho all the time you 
can reach such sources of information as will en- 
able you to start where some great man left off. 
Suppose Marconi had not studied electricity. He 
might have been inventing small batteries now, in- 
stead of producing the marvelous instruments 
which are making wireless telegraphy so perfect. 
By using the experience of the great inventors of 
the past he was able to start right away where they 
finished. 

Why, then, should you be content to acquire a 
limited knowledge laboriously, by personal experi- 
ence and experiment, when you can so easily take 
all knowledge to yourself, and learn in a few days 
far more than you could learn in a lifetime by 
your own unaided efforts? 

Everything depends upon the point of view. 
Most men regard study as an unnecessary evil that 
ceased with their school-days. That is your chance. 
If everybody studied hard, worked hard, and 
thought hard it would be a task for a Herculean 



Study 77 

mind and body to rise above the crowd and make a 
great success of life. As it is, people are generally 
so lazy that they will neither test the joys of knowl- 
edge nor make the small effort which will reveal 
to them the pleasure of achievement. Take this 
thought to yourself : 

" Whatever branch of knowledge I desire to 
take up, all the best thought of the world is at my 
disposal ; in my home I can start with the elemen- 
tary principles, and with a little daily effort can 
work my way upwards till I stand on the heights 
where the latest discoveries and thoughts are 
spread out for me to use. I can either remain one 
of the crowd with the nonentities, or I can join 
in the thoughts, triumphs and discoveries of the 
world's greatest men. Contact with great men 
will make me great, because my mind must expand 
with the stimulus of their great thoughts. It will 
be no trouble to me to mix with this great company, 
to learn their secrets and profit by their experience. 
All I need to do is to decide what men can best 
teach me, and they will come to me through the 
medium of books." 

Is it worth your while to read trash and to 
grudge a little care and mental effort to educate 
yourself up to the standard of the best minds in 
the world? Make up your mind that you will use 
all the privileges of the age you live in. Think 



78 Personal Power 

what the great men of the past would not have 
given for your opportunities. Think what you 
can do with them to help you. An army is stronger 
than a single man. You can get an army of the 
best intellects the world has ever known to help 
you fight your battles, and, in order that you may 
get the utmost benefit from their aid, you are so 
placed in regard to them that you must plan and 
think for yourself how to make use of their brains 
and experience. Think of it! You are alone and 
struggling. As soon as you will you can summon 
to your side a tireless army — battalions of picked 
men, every one of them a genius, and all of them 
willing and waiting to help you with the full force 
of their powers. However strong you may be, you 
will grow stronger still with every one of these that 
you call to your side, and the number that you 
summon depends only upon your own industry and 
capacity for using them. Is it not worth while 
to start in a small way, by securing the help of one 
of these, so that you may face the world fully 
equipped and perpetually strengthened? 

That is the right point of view from which to 
regard the necessity for study. It is not a hard- 
ship, but a privilege, and the man who is not will- 
ing to spend a little time to buy so great a power 
when he knows it is available, deserves the losses, 
both mental and material, which will be his as a 
consequence of his own mental laziness. 



CHAPTER Vin 

CULTURE AND CHARM 

" To fireside happiness, and hours of ease 
Blessed with that charm, the certainty to please." 

Rogees. 

IT is certainly our duty to give pleasure to 
others. We are to make the world a better 
and a brighter place by our presence in it, and we 
have the sure promise that in meting out our mea- 
sure of good it will be meted out to us again. The 
kindly smile brings back the cheerful, glad wish, 
just as surely as the scowl begets black looks and 
evil sentiments. According to modern beliefs ad- 
vanced by those who are well competent to judge, 
we should never allow our minds to create harmful 
thoughts and send them against people we dis- 
like. Bad thoughts are said to have a correspond- 
ing physical effect upon ourselves, just as good 
thoughts exhilarate the body while they uplift the 
soul. We all like those people who like us, who 
seem to bring sunshine into a room with them, and 
make us feel happier by their very presence. Who 
so happy as the lover whose love is returned! For 



80 Personal Power 

bim the sun shines in the darkest places and the air 
is filled with heavenly harmonies. We should get 
those same inspiring sensations if we felt only 
good-will towards all our fellows. Do you think 
the man who is consumed with hatred or malice 
can feel the gladness of the spring in his blood, or 
thank God for the glories of a perfect summer day? 
The nearer we get to the real source of the joy of 
life, the more real will become the beauties of the 
earth. For those who see only the good in their 
fellow-creatures the bright and beautiful things of 
the world shine in their sublimest splendor. There 
are no dark or gloomy thoughts to dim the radi- 
ance of earth and heaven. 

The first essential of that charm which attracts 
others is a belief in the innate goodness of human- 
ity, and a strong desire to help it forward. Many 
a friendship has been broken by a loan of money, 
but friendship was never broken by understanding 
sympathy and practical help. Out of a constant 
recognition of the good in others, and a persistent 
blindness to the faults and shortcomings of other 
folk, grows sympathy and tact. Many an action 
that seems harsh is seen to be necessary when all 
the circumstances of the case are known. Learn 
to make allowances and to judge others not from 
the standpoint of mental or moral superiority but 
of equal weakness. That is the way sympathetic 



Culture and Charm 81 

natures are made. Did not a London magistrate 
say that he never saw a prisoner in the dock with- 
out feeling that but for the grace of God he him- 
self might be standing there? " Opportunity is a 
fine thing," but it can also be a bad thing. The 
man who is born into a well-to-do family has no 
temptation to steal. The man who is busy from 
morning to night, and goes home tired out, has 
small temptation to vice. Remember your advan- 
tages, and be sure you turn them to account. Learn 
to appreciate the disabilities of others. The man 
with a perfect digestion does not realize how 
difficult it is to be good-tempered when one is 
suffering from dyspepsia. There is no virtue in 
being good when you are not tempted, or in being 
happy and cheerful when you have nothing to 
worry you. Virtue is a positive state of the mind, 
and consists of active resistance to the difficulties 
of daily life. 

This is all by way of proving that sympathy is 
not an instinct which some are born with and 
others can never acquire. It is a gift easily to be 
cultivated and one which we should all cultivate. 
From sympathy we get tact, which is the oil that 
makes the wheels of life go smoothly. A tactless 
person is a selfish person. Forget yourself, and 
think of the likes and dislikes and of the comfort 
of others, and you will be tactful. Get syhipathy 



82 Personal Power 

first, then you will surely be tactful, and with these 
two qualities you will acquire hosts of friends, and 
learn the vital secrets of success in everything that 
is really worth having in life. 

Without these saving graces of the soul all the 
culture in the world is worth nothing, but as 
culture gives an added charm to good feeling and 
good manners, it should be sought on that account. 
The secret of happiness is the power to appreciate 
the beauties of the world and of the characters of 
its inhabitants, joined to the ability to share the 
joy of knowledge with others. The lonely man 
does not get the same pleasure out of his books as 
the man who is able to discuss their subjects and 
style with his friends. Hidden in all sorts of 
places are numberless points of interest the dis- 
covery of which adds infinitely to the zest of life. 
If we can find some of these for others, they, too, 
will discover some for us. Man is an imitative 
creature. The tendency is to save one's best 
thoughts and most diverting experiences for those 
who can appreciate them. You would not write of 
love to a woman-hater, or of humor to a person 
deficient in the sense of fun. But be humorous and 
bright in your correspondence and talk, and people 
will instinctively be amusing when they come into 
contact with you. If you write a good letter in- 
stead of a bad one, you are cultivating your gifts 



Culture and Charm 83 

of observation and are enriching the treasures of 
your mind. Our habits react on each other. Let 
all your thoughts and deeds be calculated to im- 
prove the powers of your mind, and you will reap 
your reward a hundredfold. 

When you have got into the habit of being inter- 
esting in your writing and talking you will appre- 
ciate all the more the necessity and pleasure of 
cultivating your mind. You can converse with the 
greatest people in history by reading the best 
literature, but never forget that unless you turn 
your culture to practical advantage you might just 
as well have never read a line. The gospel of life 
is the gospel of action. Other people cannot make 
you clever or capable ; you must do it for yourself. 
You do not read books merely to pass the time in 
a pleasant manner; you read them for what you 
get out of them, and you can get nothing out of 
them if you simply put their contents into the lum- 
ber-room of your mind. If the reading of good 
books is to give you a polished literary style, or a 
cultured habit of talk, what is the use of reading 
them unless you try constantly to improve your 
writing and your powers of conversation? 

There is a very simple and delightful method 
of acquiring culture in a practical manner which 
used to be practised more regularly than it is in 
these strenuous and hustling days. Buy a few 



84 Personal Power 

good books, say Shakespeare's Sonnets, Hazlitt's 
" Table Talk," Emerson's Essays, Bacon's Es- 
says, and Oliver Wendell Holmes's three master- 
pieces: " The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," 
" The Professor at the Breakfast Table," and 
" The Poet at the Breakfast Table." (There are 
hundreds of others which will do as well, but 
these are good examples.) Read these carefully 
and mark them in the margins (with pencil marks 
against passages you like particularly, and your 
own remarks) as you read them. You will not only 
enjoy the reading much more by adopting this 
plan, but you will fix the best passages in your 
mind. Afterwards, in odd moments, you can pick 
up the books and refresh your memory of the gems 
of thought which pleased you when you first dis- 
covered them. I have before me as I write a little 
volume of the ' ' Table Talk, ' ' which I see I read in 
1913 (it is a splendid plan, by the way, to write in 
a book the date you started to read it), and, dip- 
ping into it haphazard, I find the following among 
the passages I marked at that time : — 

" I walked out in the afternoon and saw the evening star 
set over a poor man's cottage with other thoughts and feel- 
ings than I shall ever have again." 

Or again: 

" For not only a man's actions are effaced and vanish with 
him; his virtues and generous qualities die with him also; 



Culture and Charm 85 

his intellect only is immortal and bequeathed unimpaired to 
posterity. Words are the only things that last forever." 

Bacon's Essays, like all great masterpieces, 
please different people in different ways. A 
marked book shows the individual taste of the 
reader, and it would be a delightful thing for a 
circle of friends to map out a reading course, and 
pass the books round, each marking the passages 
he liked best, and making marginal notes on the 
context. Some would like Bacon for his range of 
knowledge, others for his style, others, again, for 
his deep insight. Here are some of the passages 
that appealed to me as I read the Essays for the 
first time : — 

" It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of 
the Stoics), that ' the good things which belong to prosperity 
are to be wished, but the good things that belong to ad- 
versity are to be admired.' " 

A few lines lower down, I marked the follow- 
ing:— 

" It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much 
! too high for a heathen) " — 

Mark how in that aside the widest intellect is seen 
to have its narrowness ! 

" — ' It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, 
and the security of a God.' " 

Yet another marked passage reminds me that we 



86 Personal Power 

should keep our independence of thought even in 
the presence of great thinkers. It is the oft-quoted 
phrase : — 

" He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to 
fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either 
of virtue or mischief." 

Bacon, indeed, points out that there are advan- 
tages to be derived from marriage, but in reading 
his essay " Of Marriage and Single Life," I find 
myself wishful to argue the point with him, which 
I conceive is a good thing for a modest mind to 
feel in the presence of a Master. Quite recently 
a successful man said to me: "I had nothing 
when I married, but immediately afterwards I 
began to make money fast — I had to." Reading 
good literature will sharpen your brain if you read 
it in a slightly argumentative spirit, and do not 
take the thoughts as being the infallible sayings 
of oracles. Having made these reflections, I 
thought I would refresh my memory of Bacon's 
life, so I turned up my encyclopedia (an indispen- 
sable adjunct to the book-lover, by the way) and 
found, somewhat to my surprise, that Bacon was 
himself a married man. According to my author- 
ity, he was of a very servile disposition, so perhaps, 
if he carried that into his home-life, many of his 
views on the disabilities of marriage may be ex- 
plained. 



Culture and Charm 87 

Reading Oliver Wendell Holmes, you will get 
some idea of what conversation may be. It is very 
brilliant conversation, of course, and much of it is 
very learned, but it shows what a wealth of interest 
life holds for the keen observer, and how that 
interest may be brought out in talk for the pleasure 
and information of others. You will love it for its 
tender sentiments, and for its acute, homely wis- 
dom. I picked up the " Breakfast Table " series 
for the purpose of finding some marked passages 
for this chapter, and, reading many of them, felt 
once more the thrills of pleasure which they gave 
me at the first perusal. 

" Poets are never young in one sense. Their delicate ears 
hear the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls 
must travel towards for scores of years before their dull 
sense is touched by them. A moment's insight is sometimes 
worth a life's experience." 

In another part of the same volume (" The Pro- 
fessor ") he remarks: 

" Life, as we call it, is nothing but the edge of the bound- 
less ocean of existence where it comes on soundings." 

If there is one thing more than another which 
creates personality and individuality, it is the 
original habit of thought which is acquired by 
sharpening the mind against the bright intellects 
of the world. It is a good mental exercise to take 
a subject treated by some competent essayist and 



88 Personal Power 

write down a series of heads to denote arguments 
and facts which one would use in writing an essay 
on the same subject, and then to compare one's 
own ideas with those of the writer. As I ^ip into 
the " Poet at the Breakfast Table," I find a talk 
about fame which well illustrates originality of 
thought, and shows the charm of communion with 
versatile thinkers. Both for its beauty and its 
thought the passage is well worth quoting: — 

" But is there not something of rest, of calm, in the 
thought of gently and gradually fading away out of human 
remembrance? What line have we written that was on a 
level with our conceptions? What page of ours that does 
not betray some weakness we would fain have left unre- 
corded? To become a classic and share the life of a lan- 
guage is to be ever open to criticisms, to comparisons, to the 
caprtces of successive generations, to be called into court 
and stand a trial before a new jury, once or more than once 
in every century. To be forgotten is to sleep in peace with 
the undisturbed myriads, no longer subject to the chills and 
heats, the blasts, the sleet, the dust, which assail in endless 
succession that shadow of a man which we call his reputa- 
tion. The line which dying we could wish to blot has been 
blotted out for us by a hand so tender, so patient, so used to 
its kindly task, that the page looks as if it had never borne 
the record of our infirmity or our transgression. And then 
so few would be content with their legacy of fame. The 
dignity of a silent memory is not to be undervalued. Fame 
is, after all, a kind of rude handling, and a name that is 
often on vulgar lips seems to borrow something not to be 
desired, as the paper-money that passes from hand to hand 
gains somewhat which is a loss thereby. O sweet, tranquil 



Culture and Charm 89 

refuge of oblivion, so far as earth is concerned, for us poor 
blundering, stammering, misbehaving creatures, who cannot 
turn over a leaf of our life's diary without feeling thankful 
that its failure can no longer stare us in the face. Not un- 
welcome shall be the baptism of dust which hides forever the 
name that was given in the baptism of water ! We shall have 
good company whose names are left unspoken by posterity. 
Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether 
there can be not more remarkable persons forgot than any 
that stand remembered in the known account of time? The 
greater part must be content to be as tho they had not been ; 
to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. 
There are moments when the aching need of repose comes 
over us and the requiescat in pace, heathen benediction as it 
is, sounds more sweetly in our ears than all the promises that 
Fame can hold out to us." 

You can think things like that, and you can write 
them down and talk them. You may do these 
things poorly at first, but they are worth doing 
even then, and as you persevere and time goes on, 
you will attain to a degree of culture which you can 
use for the pleasure of yourself and of others. Do 
not be a mediocrity. Use the gifts of free thought 
and of intellect that the Creator has given you, and 
by so doing ennoble yourself and be helpful to 
those with whom you live your daily life. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FEAR OF FAILURE 
"That which you fear happens sooner than that which you hope." 

PUBLLLIUS SYBUS. 

HOW many people fail in life only because 
they are obsessed with fear of failure! 
They so fill their minds with the thought of failing 
that they approach every task as if it were an im- 
possibility. They start with the idea that perfect 
success, for some reason, is denied to them; that 
they are unlucky, as compared with those for- 
tunate beings who seem to turn to gold everything 
they touch. Someone said to me once : "I would 
rather start in a humble way and work up gradu- 
ally, than start big and come down in the world. ' ' 
The people who are afraid to " start big " never 
achieve greatness. They are the very people who 
do come down in the world. They are so full of the 
idea of coming down that all thought of progress 
is crushed out of their minds. If they would only 
fix their thoughts on big things and success, and 
determined to move forwards, instead of continu- 

90 



The Fear of Failure 91 

ally dreading to go backward, they would lose 
their dread of failure, and they would get so used 
to the thought of success that achievement would 
become natural to them. 

Life is a big thing, and the mind of man is a 
big thing. There ought to be nothing mean or 
small in our thoughts. The imagination of man 
turns giddy at the contemplation of eternity, but 
it is bounded only by the measureless spaces of the 
universe. We can comprehend the heavens stretch- 
ing away to the uttermost bounds of the horizon, 
and we should, therefore, not confine our thoughts 
to the measures of small streets. Ultimately we 
hope to be able to grasp the meaning of eternity; 
meantime, our thoughts should naturally occupy 
themselves with the greatness and majesty of life 
rather than with the smallness of the things which 
are purely of human creation. 

Look at the sea, rolling far beyond the range of 
your vision; see the mountains, so high that they 
are lost in the clouds. Think of the power of the 
sea and the strength of the mountains, and tell 
yourself that the mind is wider and more powerful 
than the sea, and that its strength is greater than 
the mountains. Mind created the sea and the 
mountains, and your own mind can project itself 
far away to the uttermost confines of the sea and 
beyond the limits of the world itself. Is such a 



92 Personal Power 

mind to be terrified by petty difficulties and un- 
reasonable fears? 

The natural, healthy hope of all men is toward 
something that is grand and noble. In the far dis- 
tance of eternity we see the final perfection of our 
powers, the ultimate complete success of all our 
endeavors. We picture the mansions in the sky 
which are the homes of the blessed. If that is to 
be our natural lot in a world that is matchlessly 
magnificent, cannot we expect to succeed as well in 
this small world if we strive after success? Why 
should we expect failure here and success here- 
after? Is not success our natural heritage here 
and now ? 

There is never any complete failure in Nature. 
When the crops fail one year they are plentiful the 
next. If the plant has nourishment it flourishes. 
Given the right environment and the right nutri- 
ment there is corresponding growth. Take away 
air and water from a flower and it withers and dies. 
Take away enthusiasm, activity, and determina- 
tion from your mind, and wrap it up in pessimism 
and despair, and it will cramp your whole exis- 
tence and kill all your powers of achievement. Get 
into your mind the thought that you are greater 
than your environment and you will become 
greater. Do not let your fears master you; your 
success-thoughts will master your actions just as 



The Fear of Failure 93 

surely, and will crowd out your self -distrust and 
your morbid dread. 

People who are given to worry would do well 
to make a point of repeating to themselves every 
day the utterance of a sage whose name ought to 
have been immortalized : " I am an old man and 
have seen many troubles, but most of them never 
happened." If we are constantly looking for 
danger and disappointment, we have so much the 
less time to look for success. Failure and fear are 
negative qualities of the mind, and they cause a 
negative attitude which expresses itself in inaction. 
Hope is a positive mental force that produces a 
corresponding physical action. It is well to re- 
member always that every physical effect has a 
mental cause, and that our actions, which are often 
unconscious, are the direct outcome of our mental 
state. Exercise your mind with positive thoughts 
and exclude all others. It is not enough, for in- 
stance, to determine not to be indolent. Map out 
a course of action and plunge into it. Feed your 
mind on the contemplation of great deeds, and you 
will fit yourself for great things. Get into the com- 
pany of people who are active. 

Among some business men it is an axiom never 
to associate with life 's failures. It is because man 
is an imitative being. We assimilate habits of 
thought as well as physical habits from our asso- 



94 Personal Power 

ciates. The man who has failed and is yet a failure 
imbues you with his failure-thoughts, and acts as a 
drag upon your enthusiasm. It is often difficult 
enough to shut worry and fear out of the mind at 
the best of times. It is impossible if you associate 
with those who never attempt to do so. To mix 
with successful people is not only a sure help to 
filling your mind with success-thoughts, but it is a 

(very real help, inasmuch as such men regard diffi- 
culties as tests of their ability, and not, like the un- 
successful, as the cause of downfall. 

It is not always possible at first to make friends 
with very busy, successful men. It is possible as 
we progress in life, provided we make up our minds 
to do so. There is a society of successful people, 
however, which is within the reach of us all. They 
stand, so to speak, in the ante-room of the chamber 
peopled by those who will be our actual friends in 
the days to come. These are the great people of 
the world whose company we can have in our own 
homes any time we desire it. They live in books 
and tell us of the work they did, the dangers and 
difficulties they overcame, and how, in spite of 
everything, the forces of their minds triumphed 
over all obstacles and brought them to the fulfil- 
ment of their ambitions. 

Read the lives of Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon. 
You will be struck most of all with the iron resolu- 



The Fear of Failure 95 

tion that would let nothing stand in the way of 
their plans. Nothing could daunt them, nothing 
could make them turn aside from the goal they 
had set before themselves in their thoughts. There 
was no fear of failure, there were no doubts that 
the object desired could be attained. They knew 
that they could succeed, and therein lay the secret 
of their success. All their achievements were due 
to the power of their minds — not to any fortuitous 
circumstances. 

Napoleon created his victories in his mind be- 
fore he won them. Had he allowed his mind to 
dwell on chances of defeat he would never have 
achieved his splendid victories. When he failed it 
was because others were incapable of measuring 
up to his standards and of carrying out the gigantic 
tasks which he set them. Whatever may have been 
his failure at the end, was it not more glorious than 
never to have attempted and achieved such great- 
ness? The moral, surely, is that we should not 
let our ambitions overreach themselves; it can 
never be that great thoughts and great attempts 
are undesirable because they are perilous. Crom- 
well, be it noted, did not overreach himself like 
Napoleon. He refused the crown, putting a curb 
on his own ambition, and retaining the full mea- 
sure of his success to the end of his days. 

It is far better to fail grandly than to be content 



96 Personal Power 

to remain a mediocrity. The mental effort of 
attempting something great of itself is a help to- 
wards greatness. You may fail at your big work, 
but you will profit by what you do, and you will 
gain strength and knowledge which will pull you 
through next time. Do not admit that you have 
failed or can fail. The non-attainment of your 
goal at one particular onslaught does not shut you 
out from it forever. What you call failures are 
halts on the road to success to enable you to take a 
breathing space and find out what your weaknesses 
and your difficulties are. The men who accept 
them as defeats are the men who are " unlucky." 
The wise man profits by his misfortunes and turns 
them to account; and he marches straight on to 
success. Do not assume that you will be less effi- 
cient or less prosperous to-morrow than you are to- 
day. Make yourself more efficient still, and fit 
yourself for greater deeds. 



CHAPTER X 

KEYS TO HAPPINESS 

" Learn only to grasp happiness, for happiness is always there.™ 

Goethe. 

BEE will means the power to rule our minds. 
We cannot rule unless we understand. It is 
not necessary that we should indulge in morbid 
introspection concerning ourselves. We can learn 
by studying human nature, and by pondering over 
the lives of the great men and women of the ages. 
Self-control is the first lesson that life teaches us, 
because without it we cannot succeed in anything 
we may undertake. 

Success is merely a relative term. To a number 
of people it stands for happiness ; to some, content- 
ment; to others, money. Money is not to be de- 
spised. After all, it is the visible and tangible sign 
of success in business. We must never forget, how- 
ever, that success in business does not necessarily 
mean success in life. The philosopher said, 
" Success cannot buy happiness," to which the 
cynic replied : ' ' No, but it can buy off a lot of un- 

97 



98 Personal Power 

happiness. ' ' If you have money you want to know 
how to use it so that it will bring you actually what 
you need, and this demands a cultivated and well- 
balanced mind. 

There is one quality of the mind that makes for 
power and progress above all others. Without it, 
life must be a failure and a fraud, hopeless and 
despairing. With it, all the days are tinged with 
rose, all our troubles, defeats, and disappointments 
are but the sign-posts marking the steps of the 
road to success and happiness. It is the philoso- 
pher's stone of life which turns all it touches to 
gold. This quality is optimism. It is a gift of God 
possest by everybody, like free will. It may be- 
come atrophied from lack of use, or remain stunted 
because it is used too little. Yet, like all our 
natural gifts, it will increase in value by cultiva- 
tion and use. Man was never meant to be a pessi- 
mist. Pessimism is an entirely artificial habit of 
mind that has no existence. Take an example. The 
optimist says, ' ' Every cloud has its silver lining. ' ' 
The pessimist replies, " Every silver lining be- 
tokens a cloud. " ' ' Yes, ' ' says the optimist, ' ' but 
the cloud only hides the sun for a while. The sun 
is there all the time, more powerful than the cloud, 
and in time its strength will disperse the cloud 
altogether. ' ' 

In business, optimism generally goes by the 



Keys to Happiness 99 

name of ambition. The ambitious man sees only 
the goal toward which he is striving. He has his 
losses and his setbacks, but he knows the goal is 
still accessible. As soon as he begins to doubt that, 
his efforts slacken and his work deteriorates in 
quality. Success is a state of mind like everything 
else. Each day of achievement is a day of success, 
tho the work may not look profitable. Each task 
well done is a help to success because it induces 
a sense of satisfaction, and makes work easier and 
pleasanter. You can see, if you follow this line of 
reasoning, that every material and moral success 
is bound up with the quality of optimism, and that 
the more we cultivate this quality the more suc- 
cessful and the happier we shall be. 

It is the duty of each one of us to be an optimist. 
Do you suppose that the derelicts of London or 
New York who throng the Embankment and City 
Hall Park seats at night would be there if they 
were optimists'? Some of them fell into the depths 
because they had no strong hand to drag them up- 
ward. If they had had the self-reliance that 
optimism breeds, do you suppose they would have 
given up the struggle! Some got there through 
drink. Drink, as we know, produces an artificial 
feeling of pleasure. It dulls the pessimism of the 
brain. That artificial state of mind can be pro- 



100 Personal Power 

duced much more easily by an effort of will. If all 
the world were pessimists, what an awful place it 
would be to live in ! We each know men and women 
who come into a room like a ray of sunshine. They 
are optimists, and their influence makes other peo- 
ple optimists too. You must be one of those people 
• — it is your duty to yourself and to those you meet. 
The effect of your optimism will spread itself in 
ever-widening circles, affecting people you never 
meet, and the world will be a better and a brighter 
place because of your life. You have that duty to 
perform to the world, and in performing it you will 
gain affection and happiness as well as material 
success. 

You may think it is not easy to be an optimist. 
It is easy because it simply means being natural. 
All you have to do is to be an optimist. Stop read- 
ing this book a moment, and smile. Do you not feel 
happier by that very action? Now throw your 
chest out and look upward at the ceiling. Does not 
that simple action help to turn your thoughts up- 
ward away from the petty troubles and worries 
of life ? If you do not feel better after that, go out 
into the open and look up at the sky. Up there 
your little troubles will soon be lost. Nature has 
no room for pessimism. It breeds only in the 
narrow street and among little people. Measure 



Keys to Happiness 101 

your mind by the infinite, and you will lose all your 
little troubles. 

If you study life you will not fail to notice that 
for every pain there is some compensation and for 
every trouble some recompense. A man I know in 
his youth wanted to be a journalist. He applied 
for a position on a newspaper, and was offered a 
job on the commercial side. He went home, he 
said, wishing almost that a street-car would run 
over him and end his disappointment. To-day he 
is at the top of his profession, earning probably 
three or four times as much as he could have done 
if he had secured the work he asked for. What 
he regarded as a disaster was the beginning of his 
success. If your daily work is obnoxious to you, 
do it as well as you can. Be sure it is developing 
some side of your character that will make you 
more successful in life. Mr. Gladstone hated 
figures when at school, but he mastered them so 
successfully in after life that he became Chancel- 
lor of the Exchequer and^ subsequently, Premier. 
Be sure that your humdrum, worrying work, well 
done, is producing valuable experience and is 
molding your character. Be an optimist and you 
will get there. 

Look back over your life for two things only. 
Once to note all the pleasures it has brought you, 
and once again to see how your troubles were only 



102 Personal Power 

the beginnings of happier times which you could 
not have had without them. Browning has crystal- 
lized the sense of optimism in familiar lines which 
are immortal because they are true. Here they are. 
Learn them by heart, and when you are deprest 
and pessimistic, say them over, and then look back 
over your life and ' ' count your blessings " : — 

" One who never turned his back, but marched breast for- 
ward, 

Never doubted clouds would break, 

Never dreamed, tho right were worsted, wrong would 
triumph, 

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to 
wake." 

The mind has this great advantage over matter, 
that it can create from itself its own atmosphere. 
The grass in the field scintillates and brightens in 
the sun, and becomes dull when the sun disappears 
behind a cloud. The mind can store up its sun- 
shine and sparkle in dulness from its own reserve 
of brightness. Just as the engineer imprisons the 
flood-waters of the Nile to let them loose on the 
arid plain during the drought, so the mind can ab- 
sorb its sunshine and its pleasant thoughts, and 
imprison them till they are required to enliven dark 
hours of difficulty and danger. 

The dominant reality of life is brightness and 
beauty. The body responds to beauty, whether it 



Keys to Happiness 103 

be beauty of form, of scent, or of sound. The phys- 
ical counterpart of sunshine is a bright expres- 
sion. It is instructive to note how beauty produces 
brightness. A beautiful melody exhilarates the 
mind and refreshes the body. The scent of flowers, 
even in a room, conjures up visions in the mind of 
sunlit spaces. Visible things are seen because they 
reflect light. 

Some people are naturally more cheerful than 
others. They have a greater capacity for absorb- 
ing brightness into their minds and retaining it 
there to be called out when needed. It is of such 
persons that we say " their presence is like sun- 
shine." They correspond to those colors which 
readily reflect light, and they affect our spirits in" 
a very similar manner. 

In the normal condition of mind, the spirits rise 
in bright sunshine. When the spirit is darkened 
by sorrow or disappointment, the sunshine is un- 
noticed. It is there if we choose to see it ; and when 
the sun sets or is hidden, the brightness it gives to 
the earth is still there if the mind will only let loose 
its hidden store of light. You have often seen a 
landscape under a cloudy sky, looking dark and for- 
bidding. Suddenly the sun breaks out, and a thou- 
sand hidden splendors spring to view. The sun 
does not create them. They were there before, only 
you did not see them. All the beauty of the earth 



104 Personal Power 

lies before your eyes whenever you care to see it, 
if you will only store up your sunshine and use it 
when need arises. 

If you were to hang a room in black and let the 
sun pour into it, very little of its brightness would 
be reflected. The room would be dark and depress- 
ing under all circumstances. A white room, on the 
«>ther hand, would gleam in the sunshine and be 
bright, even with a cloudy sky. If you are to make 
your mind a storage-place for mental sunshine, you 
must first of all clear out all the dark and forbidding 
thoughts, and replace them with bright and pleas- 
ant ones. A man stands sentinel at the portals of 
his mind. He can admit or refuse his thoughts at 
his will. One of the penalties of Satan after his fall 
from heaven, according to Milton, was the loss of 
his brightness : 

" Oh how fallen ! how changed, 
From him, who, in the happy realms of light, 
Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine 
Myriads, tho bright ! " 

It is our privilege to be able to create for our- 
selves an earthly Paradise by the creation of bright 
thoughts that will shine out and illumine our lives. 
According to modern thought, Heaven and Hell are 
matters of the mind. Hell is a mind purged of 
everything but gloom, Heaven the glory of tran- 
scendent brightness. If we allow worry and de- 



Keys to Happiness 105 

spair to come into our mental houses and drive out 
hope and contentment, it is our own fault. To the 
lover the world is always a garden, bright with 
flowers and sweet with incense. On the darkest day 
his spirits are high and undaunted. The world lies 
before him at his feet. He would not change his 
state with kings, for he has that within him which 
kings would envy. This is purely a state of mind 
created by himself, and it is a state of mind that he 
can create at any time. 

The mind is dominated by its strongest interest. 
If you concentrate your thought upon your work, 
you are oblivious to the external influences that sur- 
round you. If you are absorbed in listening to 
music, or in the contemplation of a beautiful pic- 
ture, the state of the weather outside has no influ- 
ence on you whatever. The small boy going home 
in the dark whistles to keep his courage up, be- 
cause he unconsciously wishes to replace the fear- 
thoughts in his mind by the courage-thoughts which 
the tune suggests. If we are deprest, we have 
only to substitute bright thoughts to drive away 
depression. If we are worried, the hope-thoughts, 
firmly held in the mind, will give us new courage. 

The very act of throwing our minds into a condi- 
tion of brightness will enliven our mental outlook. 
When you are feeling unaccountably sad or miser- 
able, smile and laugh, and you will find that happy 



106 Personal Power 

thoughts will easily flow into your mind. If you 
feel dull, sing a jolly song. The mere act will make 
you feel jolly, and will help you to replace the dul- 
ness by a feeling of cheerfulness. We are just what 
we want to be. If I frown, I am helping the dull 
thoughts, the miserable thoughts, to come into my 
mind. It is a direct invitation to invade my men- 
tal house. When I smile, I hang out a sign, ' ' House 
full of bright, clean thoughts ; no room for dulness 
and despair." 

We must not forget that our surroundings react 
upon our minds. It is easy to be happy in the sun- 
shine and in the midst of beautiful scenery; it is 
helpful to harmonious, serene thinking, to be sur- 
rounded with good company and bright and beauti- 
ful things. A bedroom should have quiet wallpaper 
to induce restfulness. A sitting-room should be 
bright and cheerful to promote happiness. A red 
wdl-papcr is good for a dining-room because it is 
bright ; nd stimulating, while green is a restful 
color suitable for a work-room. 

You can store up mental sunshine in many ways. 
Remember all the pleasant books you read, the 
amusing things you hear, the interesting sights you 
see, the beautiful places you have visited, and the 
happy hours you have spent. Forget all your 
troubles and disappointments as soon as you have 
learned their uses to you, so that the experience 



Keys to Happiness 107 

they give you can be utilized when you need it. Get 
the habit of cheerfulness, not only by being con- 
sistently cheerful and looking cheerful, whatever 
you may be inclined to feel, but also by mixing with 
cheerful people. Most people respond to each 
other's state of mind. If you refuse to be gloomy, 
your companions will become cheerful, and you will 
all forget what it is not to be happy. 

You can never get away from the fact that life 
was meant to be bright. The day is bright, even if 
the sun is not shining. The night is brightened by 
the moonlight. In our darkest hours there is al- 
ways the brightness of hope, and in our moments 
of despair faith shows us the splendor of final 
compensation for all suffering in a state of bliss 
that is eternal day. " Look at the bright side," 
says the proverb. Habits, we know, grow on us, 
whether they be good or bad. Resolutely refuse to 
allow dark thoughts to enter your mind. They can- 
not come if you will not admit them, and you have 
only to fill your mind with beautiful thoughts to 
keep them out. 

Sunshine is the great medicine. The sun is the 
power that gives warmth to the earth and brings 
forth the flower. Mental sunshine will drive away 
sickness and will keep it away. It reacts on the 
whole body. Physicians know that the greatest 
healer is the power of the mind. Dark thoughts 



108 Personal Power 

depress the vitality, hopeful thoughts raise the tone 
of the entire system and help the body to resist the 
onslaught of disease. The body reacts on the mind 
in its own way, and for this reason personal clean- 
liness and neatness are physical helps to mental 
well-being. The prime force of our being, however, 
rests in our minds. We are the governors of our 
minds. Nothing lives there but we put it there. 
It is ours to train and to control. Make your mind 
a bright and joyous place, and you will be vigorous 
and healthy. Control your passions and your ap- 
petites, and relentlessly crush all those desires 
which impair your mental strength. If we are 
gloomy or pessimistic it is our own fault, and we de- 
serve no sympathy. The world is full of bright- 
ness and light. It is there for us to see, and to 
take for our own use when the dark days come. 
The mental sunshine of undaunted optimism is 
one of life's best gifts, and it is our duty to culti- 
vate the habit of seeing and using it, remember- 
ing that 

" He that has light within his own clear breast 
May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day: 
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts 
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; 
Himself is his own dungeon." 



PART II 
Power in Use 



CHAPTER XI 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF POWER 

"Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much: 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." 

Cowpee. 

A MAN ought to order his life by the same broad 
rules which govern business. The general 
principles of business success are knowledge, in- 
dustry, and system. Knowledge creates business, 
industry enlarges it and retains it, while system 
insures the smooth and automatic working of the 
organization. Without any of these a business can 
not succeed, and no man can get the full value out 
of life who fails to use them in his daily actions. 

By industry a man acquires knowledge and de- 
velops his mental capacity. By system he adds to 
his knowledge and his brain-power day by day, 
while he makes each day fruitful of result. System 
insures efficiency by providing against waste of 
effort. Each day brings its allotted task, and many 
an hour that might be wasted is turned to profitable 
account. 

Knowledge is the great asset in life : not merely 

111 



112 Personal Power 

the knowledge of facts, or of men, or of affairs, but 
that knowledge which combines all three and adds 
to them the power of using the information stored 
in our minds. This is wisdom. 

Success is possible for everybody. It is merely 
a question of a right mental attitude. Some people 
affect to sneer at writers who lay down laws for 
success, but it is worth while noting that really 
successful men never do this. They know that 
there are laws which govern success, because they 
have learned them by long experience. The sooner 
they discovered those laws the sooner they suc- 
ceeded. The wise man profits by the experience of 
others, and succeeds because he can avoid their mis- 
takes while he takes advantage of their knowl- 
edge. 

If a man desires to succeed, the first thing for 
him to know is what he is aiming at. The differ- 
ence between men who succeed and men who fail 
mainly lies in the fact that the former know what 
they want, and concentrate all the forces of their 
minds upon getting it. You cannot attend to busi- 
ness while you calculate how many more hours 
there are before you go home. You cannot even 
sharpen a lead-pencil properly unless you concen- 
trate all your attention upon it. When you settle 
down to anything, shut out everything else from 
your mind. Bring all your guns to bear upon the 



The Knowledge of Power 113 

one fort you wish to subdue. Don't scatter. Con- 
centrate ! 

The more you fix your mind upon your work, 
the more readily your mind can solve your prob- 
lems for you. Your attention is not wandering, 
and you are able to work quicker. This means that 
you have more time for other tasks, and herein lies 
another secret of success. The more work you do 
the more you will be able to do, apart altogether 
from being able to earn more money. The extra 
exercise you give your mind will enlarge your 
brain-power and your capacity. Another advan- 
tage you will gain is the ability to do better work. 
The more you do and the better you do it, the 
higher you can rise and the more you can earn. 

Find out what you want, and plan to get it. 
Many men have wasted years of their lives search- 
ing for a career. They have launched out here and 
there, feeling for success. Do not look for success 
or for money. Look after your work, whatever it 
is; look out for more work in addition to it, and 
success will come to you. Fix your eye on the job 
above yours, and aim for that. Then go for the 
next highest, and so on. Remember that it is not by 
flashes of brilliance that success is achieved, but by 
steady, plodding work, plus ambition. 

The more you do, the more opportunity will 
come to you. The better you do your work, the 



114 Personal Power 

better will you be fitted for doing something more 
important. Everything well done makes the next 
task a little easier, and, as time goes on, unsus- 
pected resources and abilities discover themselves. 
The man who is always ready for new work, and 
can be relied upon to do it well, is the man who 
succeeds. There are plenty of openings for men of 
resource, who are full of confidence in themselves. 
Never fear responsibility, and you need never fear 
failure. These are some of the elementary rules 
for success. 

Get your ambition properly defined, and then fit 
yourself to seize your opportunities as they arise. 
A man has got to find out two things before he 
can be successful. The first, and most important, 
is what he wants. The second, which is almost as 
vital, is what his limitations are. It is not the 
cleverest men who are most successful, but those 
who use the knowledge they possess in the right 
way. If you want a thing badly enough, and use 
all your brain and all your efforts in pursuing it, 
you will be bound to succeed. Ask yourself if your 
work calls forth your best abilities, or if you are 
wasting your talents by doing work which others 
can do as well or better. It does not actually 
matter what your work is, so long as you do it 
perfectly; but it is essential to success that it 
should lead you where you want to go. 



The Knowledge of Power 115 

As soon as you make up your mind to achieve 
some definite purpose, you begin to plan ways and 
means. You drift no more along the current of 
life, meeting the rocks and shallows like the aver- 
age man. You make a chart of your course, you 
steer by it, and so you go steadily on, avoiding the 
dangers that wreck so many. 

Nothing is achieved without effort, and the 
things worth doing and having are only attained 
if that effort is well directed. Every thought and 
moment wasted on work that cannot help you for- 
ward is keeping you back just a little from your 
goal. The less you waste your time the sooner you 
will succeed. 

This brings us to the importance of recognizing 
our limitations. It is no use for a man incapable of 
understanding figures to occupy his time trying to 
become an insurance actuary. He is simply court- 
ing competition he cannot stand against. On the 
other hand, a man with a talent for figures, and a 
liking for them, starts with a great advantage in 
the battle for success, if his work demands a gift 
for mathematics. Find out what your special 
talent is, and develop that. Do not do one thing 
tolerably, when you can do something else per- 
fectly. 

Do not imagine that if you are weak at figures 
you should leave them alone. You should never let 



116 Personal Power 

your weaknesses conquer you. A knowledge of 
figures is as necessary a part of a business man's 
equipment as the ability to write a good letter. 
Get a working knowledge of business essentials, 
and develop the special ability which is going to 
raise you above the crowd in your career. 

You must remember that the man who is at the 
top of any business or profession is as good at 
routine work as any of the men struggling below 
him. They cannot do his work, but he could do 
theirs if necessary. I knew an English journalist 
who thought he was a born editor, but because he 
failed to learn shorthand all his special ability was 
of no use to him. He could not do routine work, and 
he was not wanted, so he never got his chance to 
rise. 

You must do your routine work as well as any 
other man, and you must be able to do something 
or other of value which most men can not do. Ask 
yourself which man in your office would be the last 
to be dismissed if work were slack, and find out 
the reason. Is there some knowledge you possess, 
of value to your firm, which makes you more indis- 
pensable than the others? If not, there ought to 
be, or your position is unsound. 

Master your work, and fit yourself for some- 
thing better. The men who rise are those who are 
so ambitious that they are never content. The 



The Knowledge of Power 117 

measure of your ultimate success is the measure of 
your ambition. If you mean to succeed, and are 
determined enough, you will find opportunities. 

You must remember, however, that your success 
depends upon those who can help you, and upon 
the manner in which you impress those who can 
push you forward. That is the value of a strong 
personality. It is no use having ability unless you 
can make other people realize its value to them. 
In this respect all men are salesmen. They are 
selling their brain-power to the highest bidder in 
the best market. 

If you were to get a very fine diamond in the 
rough and have it set uncut in a ring by a cheap 
jeweler, nobody would notice it upon your finger. 
Cut it and polish it, and have it set by a skilful 
craftsman, and nobody could fail to notice it. Your 
brains are a rough diamond, and you yourself are 
the rough setting. You must polish your brains 
and make their setting attractive, and then you will 
create a favorable impression. But be sure the 
diamond is worthy of the setting. 

When you meet anybody for the first time, you 
shuw them a sample of what you really are. It is 
vital that you should impress them, because if you 
fail to do that you will lack the opportunity to sell 
your goods. On the other hand, it is waste of time 



118 Personal Power 

to impress a man unless you can fulfil his expecta- 
tions. Your goods must be up to sample. 

The chief factors in creating a good impres- 
sion are: (1) A good appearance; (2) a pleasing- 
manner; (3) a suggestion of power. A successful 
man once said to me, " A man ought to be drest 
so that he could walk either in Fifth Avenue or in 
the Bowery without attracting notice." Dirty 
linen and unclean finger-nails have lost many a job. 

Sense of power comes from self-confidence. If 
you know that you are worth employing you can- 
not fail to convey that knowledge when you speak. 
Let your voice be quiet, like your clothes. Do not 
irritate by harsh, nasal intonations. Speak forci- 
bly, in a pleasing voice. Do not hesitate over your 
words, because that implies a hesitating mind. 
Your clothes and your speech are like a written 
character to the judge of men. He can read your 
mind and your ability from your appearance. 

Now consider the goods you are selling. Avoid 
promising too much. Keep something up your 
sleeve for emergencies. A man controlling a turn- 
over of half-a-million dollars a year said to me 
recently : " If a man starts with me at a small 
salary, it is easy for him to justify it. The man I 
engage at a big wage is subject to a constant test. 
Where the small earner pleases me by giving more 
than I anticipated, I expect such a lot from the 



The Knowledge of Power 119 

other that it is most difficult for him to satisfy me. ' ' 
Do not be greedy, but remember that merit will 
always find its true level. 

Master your work. When you know you are 
competent you will be confident. Industry will 
make you competent and ambition will keep you 
industrious. You will then begin to find out what 
your brains are worth, and you will cultivate them 
carefully and be jealous of your time, so that you 
shall not waste any of your mental effort unprofit- 
ably. Work hard all day and every day, and try to 
do your work a little better each day. 

Do not make a lumber-room of your mind. 
Store it well with knowledge that you can use to 
help you in your day's work. Display your abili- 
ties in what you do, and see that everything you 
perform is worthy of your mind. Take care that 
your appearance and your speech convey a correct 
impression of your brain-power. Be content to 
advance slowly. Do not overreach yourself either 
by attempting too much or by asking too much. If 
you have the goods to sell you can always command 
the best prices. 

While you are storing up knowledge that will 
be useful, and while you are using it to its full 
advantage, remember always what your mind is 
capable of. The more you realize what talents you 
possess and your capacity for employing them, the 



120 Personal Power 

more confidence and encouragement you will derive 
from the knowledge. One thing that people are 
often prone to forget, especially when the outlook 
seems hopeless, is that good work well done is 
always noticed. An employer, for instance, who 
needs to look ahead and provide for all possible 
contingencies, must watch for men who can take 
responsible positions in case the employees holding 
them leave him. If he can find them in his own 
office, he will prefer to do so, because he knows his 
own men. If he cannot, he will go outside, and he is 
always keeping his eyes open to find men of real 
ability whom he can use in the best-paid positions 
in his business. Let your knowledge be acquired 
for the purpose of making you a marked man. If 
you will steadily persevere in your quest for wis- 
dom, which is the art of using knowledge as well 
as getting it, some one will want you for some post 
that you are fitted for, and probably the call to 
better things will come sooner than you expect. 
Opportunity knocks at every man's door, but it 
forces open the door of the man who possesses 
knowledge and is aware of his possession 



CHAPTER Xn 

MENTAL STOCK-TAKING 
All our knowledge is ourselves to know." — Pope. 

k NE of the greatest mental triumphs is to look 
back over a year and observe an advance in 
mental power and achievement. To know yourself 
a better man than you were twelve months ago, to 
have a finer record of good work done, and to have 
acquired greater ability for doing things, is a re- 
ward that is known only to the earnest worker. 
The idler, the prevaricator, and the shirker have 
no conception of this form of reward for labor. It 
is sweeter than praise, and better than money, in- 
asmuch as power of the mind commands money, 
and is, therefore, superior to it. 

Some people deliberately blind themselves to 
their own abilities. lt Happy occasions oft by 
self -mistrust are forfeited," says Wordsworth. I 
know a man, with every advantage of brain and 
common sense, whose self -mistrust stands like a 
lion in the path of his material progress. He as- 
similates knowledge with ease, he is essentially 
businesslike, he can get right to the heart of a 

question by stripping it of its side-issues, he is 

121 



122 Personal Power 

qualified for at least two professions, and he is the 
kind of person to whom the family immediately 
repair for help and advice when in difficulty. The 
only thing that keeps him back is a lack of knowl- 
edge of his own powers. Many a clerk in an office 
is a clerk still because he is afraid to attempt work 
a little out of his regular routine. The people who 
succeed in life are those who are not afraid of re- 
sponsibility, and it must be confessed that too many 
people are crippled by this unreasonable and de- 
grading bogey. 

Man, made in the image of his Creator, was, 
from the first, given command over everything in 
the world. He is greater than his work if he will 
only realize it. Most people who profess to believe 
in the Bible, for instance, read and hear this truth 
over and over again, but it never dawns upon them 
that it applies to themselves. Comparatively few 
people realize that not only is man given command 
over all the earth, but that he is also given com- 
mand over himself. If he only will he can crush 
his timidity, he can fit himself for responsibility, 
and clutch it with both hands; and he will be a 
better and a stronger man for doing so. 

Eesponsibility is the very essence of life. It is 
the primary rule of existence. No man can be 
responsible for another's soul, or for his misuse of 
his talents and opportunities. We are all responsi- 



Mental Stocktaking 123 

ble for our own lives, and in material things we re- 
ceive our rewards or our punishments, according to 
the manner in which we accept our responsibilities 
and act up to them. The punishment for shirking 
responsibility lies in a stultification of our powers 
of mind and body. The reward for accepting it 
lies in the glory of achievement and in the plea- 
sure of discovering new and unsuspected powers. 
Every fresh task undertaken, every new piece of 
knowledge acquired, every new power for doing 
different and better work, marks an advance in 
mental force that is but another stepping-stone to 
still greater performances. To-morrow ought to 
find you a better man than you were yesterday. 
Next year you ought to be capable of work that 
was unknown to you twelve months before. 

You can only discover what you are capable of 
by striking out on new lines of endeavor, and to 
do this successfully you must seize every oppor- 
tunity for more important work that comes your 
way. Look carefully into the work of your office 
and observe what knowledge is necessary to enable 
you to carry out the work that the men above you 
are doing. It is your duty to fit yourself for these 
higher places, and only by doing so can you success- 
fully accept responsibility. Knowledge is power, 
because it gives a man confidence in himself. If 
you fit yourself for the work of the men above you 



124 Personal Power 

in your office, you will not fear responsibility when- 
ever your good fortune thrusts it upon you. What 
the world wants, and what the commercial house 
wants, is men who can do things, who know they 
can do them, and who, consequently, are not afraid 
to attempt things. Everything is forgiven to the 
man of honest action. 

It is reported of Andrew Carnegie that he once 
dismissed a man from his employ after years of 
work, on the ground that he had never made a 
mistake. The magnate argued that the man who 
never made a mistake could never be good for any- 
thing. Certainly, the man who makes no mistakes 
cannot be advancing out of the common ruck of 
life. Employers do not blame a man for his mis- 
takes if his general work is good, and if they are 
caused by the responsibility he has accepted. The 
thing to be sure of is that the same mistake shall 
not be made twice. 

Beware of the policy of ' ' drift. ' ' It is a maxim 
of business that if you are not advancing you are 
going backwards. You cannot be sure you are 
advancing if you are content to drift. It will be 
safe for you to assume that unless you take com- 
mand of your life's work, and map out a plan for 
your mental and material progress, you will let 
yourself be outstripped by the more sagacious run- 
ners in life's race. The gospel of life is action. 



Mental Stocktaking 125 

The man of action shapes his own destiny, while 
the weak man leavec everything to chance and is 
forced to action only by the command of others or 
by the hazards of life. The strong man stands aside 
and views himself and his environment, as it were, 
and shapes his life accordingly. 

Ask yourself at the end of each day what you 
have done that you did not do yesterday. Ask 
yourself what you are going to do to-morrow to fit 
yourself for work you cannot do to-day. Work, 
to be successful, must be organized. Haphazard 
effort is too often wasted effort. Conserve your 
energies by arranging your plan of campaign, so 
that while you do your work as well as you are ca- 
pable of doing it, you shall not waste your time and 
energy simply through lack of thought and system. 

The merchant who is most successful is he who 
anticipates a coming demand. If he waited for 
people to ask for new fashions, for instance, he 
would find his trade going to more enterprising 
rivals who had looked ahead and made plans to be 
ready when the public wanted to buy. It is the 
same in the office. The man who waits for a sudden 
emergency without preparing for it is likely to be 
found lacking in power to meet it when it arrives. 
Your employer makes his profit because he is con- 
stantly looking ahead, thinking and planning. It 
would be foolish of him to think out a new idea for 



126 Personal Power 

making money unless he also worked out the de- 
tails of the work necessary to be done. The more 
carefully the details are attended to, the more will 
the work be worthy of the plan. If you are to 
succeed in life, you must model yourself on success- 
ful men. Model your work on your employer's 
business methods. If he is worth serving he is 
worth studying, and if you are to do good work for 
him you must be able to work according to his 
methods. Study day by day the work of each day 
and the needs of each day, and then take stock 
of yourself to see if you are mentally equipped to 
meet the demands that may be made upon you. 
You must not be content to get through the day 
merely doing the things that fall to your lot. Be- 
member, every hour of to-day holds the key of your 
future. What you learn this moment may affect 
your life years hence. 

When you have decided what knowledge will be 
most useful to you when you get the position in 
your office that you have determined to win, map 
out a course of work for each day. Suppose you 
want to know more about bookkeeping. Make 
your plans for study, and fix a time each day when 
you will devote yourself to it for a given period. 
Even if it is only a quarter of an hour it will mount 
up as the weeks go on. There are many uncon- 
sidered moments in your life that you can turn to 
profitable account in this way. 



Mental Stocktaking 127 

Do not worry at first if you think you are not 
learning exactly the best thing to help you in 
the future. Learn something to make you better 
equipped with knowledge for the battle of life. The 
future will take care of itself, and you can be quite 
sure that whatever you learn you will find a way to 
make a valuable use of in the future. The very act 
of making up your mind to watch your work and 
train your faculties accordingly, the very determi- 
nation to carry through that training, will make you 
a better and more efficient unit in human progress. 
The great necessity for progress is to make a start. 
Do something that will use your mind to your own 
advantage. Do not sit about and think what will 
be the pleasantest or most profitable study. Get 
to work on something to utilize your wasted even- 
ing hours. Very soon you will reap your reward 
in finding the revelation of your life's work and 
the powers you possess to carry it through. You 
will have confidence in yourself and in your future. 
You will soon get past the stage when you wonder 
if you are working along the right lines, and will 
find yourself in the company of those happy souls 
who know what their allotted task in the world 
really is : 

" To whom in vision clear 
The aspiring heads of future things appear, 
Like mountain-tops whose mists have rolled away." 



CHAPTER XIII 

PLANNING FOR SUCCESS 

" A noble aim, 
Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed." 

Wordsworth. 

MOST men drift. It is easy, and it saves 
worry, until they strike some rock in the 
sea of life. If you wanted to go to Europe you 
would not dream of going down to the docks and 
getting aboard the first ship you saw in the hope 
that it would take you there, would you? Or if 
you wanted to walk to a friend's new house you 
would not wander aimlessly about the streets on 
the off-chance that you would reach your destina- 
tion. You may say that these illustrations are 
absurd ; but just think for a minute and inquire if 
your present habits are not just as silly. Here you 
are in business, hoping to get on and make money. 
Do you know what position you really want to 
obtain, and have you any plans for securing it? If 
you are just doing your day 's work, even if you are 
striving to do it perfectly, you are drifting — on the 
off-chance that you will achieve your ambition by 

128 



Planning for Success 129 

some mysterious chance which will present itself 
some day. 

Here you are, we will say, and there is some 
position you want. Are you aware of the road you 
must travel to reach your destination, and are you 
moving along that road? Most men have only a 
dim idea of what they want, and no idea how they 
are going to get it. They fancy that the tide in 
their affairs will come to the flood one day and 
bear them on to fortune. You must travel to the 
sea before you can see the tide, and you must be 
properly equipped with a ship if it is to carry you 
on to fortune. 

The first thing to do to achieve success is to have 
a definite goal to aim at, and the next thing is to 
see how you can arrive at it. You cannot reach 
it at a bound. You must travel by easy stages, 
gathering strength and experience as you go on. 

As a rule, the men who are most successful are 
those who work their way up from the bottom of 
their profession. As they progress they master all 
the details of their business and gain experience. 
The work of mastering details is the easiest. It is 
the gathering of the extra experience, and the cul- 
tivation of sound judgment, that is difficult. 

Whenever you find a competent man grumbling 
that he cannot get on, you can safely put down the 
cause of his failure to a lack of knowledge of how 



130 Personal Power 

to qualify himself for his promotion. Let us take 
a common case and see how this works out. 

Here are the ledger clerks in an office employ- 
ing a large number of these workers. All of them 
are good at keeping their accounts, all are industri- 
ous, and all are ambitious. They all work hard, 
and one day the cashier retires, and some one has 
to be promoted to take his place. Which of them 
shall have the better-paid post? 

Put yourself in the position of the employer. 
He wants the best man, and, if possible, he wants 
that man to be one who, in case of emergency, can 
do better work still. In a word, he wants a man 
who can seize all the opportunities of the better 
post. Mere industry and commonplace competence 
will not insure promotion for any one of the clerks. 
One of these men is chosen, and from the employ- 
er's point of view the choice was inevitable. He 
was no better at keeping books than any of the 
others, because they all kept their books as per- 
fectly as possible. He just happened to be quali- 
fied for the work, and I will tell you how. 

There is in England an Institute of Secretaries 
which holds examinations and confers degrees. One 
of these clerks was an associate of the institute. 
The employer knew that he had passed certain ex- 
aminations, that he had special knowledge, and 
that he was therefore competent to do responsible 






Planning for Success 131 

work. He knew also that he was industrious and 
ambitious, or he never would have taken the trouble 
to work for the examinations. Everything showed 
that this man was determined to rise, and that he 
was planning for success. Was he not bound to be 
chosen? 

There is a case where promotion is not easy. 
Bookkeepers are usually regarded as non-produc- 
tive units in business. All the same, a bookkeeper 
can become a manager and control salesmen if only 
he knows how to do it, and then his value is appar- 
ent. ; Find out what qualifications you need in order 
to fit yourself for promotion, and then qualify 
yourself. That is the surest way to rise. Do not 
waste your energy over other methods. **7 

You can see now that the man who succeeds is 
the one who knows what he wants, and finds out 
how to get it. Such a man wastes no time upon 
anything that will not help him forward. More 
than that, he concentrates every ounce of his power 
and every thought of his mind, upon his work and 
upon his plan. Nothing worth while can happen to 
you if you sit still and dream. Anything you really 
want will come to you if you plan for it and work 
for it intelligently and energetically. Knowledge 
is power; but the knowledge of how to use what 
you know is success. 

How many men make plans for success who fail 



132 Personal Power 

miserably in achieving their ambitions! The 
world is full of disappointed people who have 
striven for certain positions, only to find at last 
that they are passed over in favor of some one else. 
Sometimes it is their own fault, sometimes it is 
hard luck. Generally it is their own fault. If it is 
hard luck which causes their failure, that is nothing 
more than a temporary setback, and may be re- 
garded as a disappointment. There are always 
plenty of high positions falling vacant, and not 
enough good men to fill them. No man who is prop- 
erly qualified for exceptional work need fear that 
he will be overlooked forever. Only those who are 
numbered with the crowd of mediocrities run the 
risk of being pushed aside permanently in the 
struggle for existence. 

We now come to the general cause of failure, 
which is to be found in a man's self. Never lose 
sight of your faults. We do not like being criti- 
cized, and as soon as a man is found fault with he 
instinctively turns himself into a counsel for the 
defense, ignores the faults altogether, and insists 
upon the virtues of his case. This is rank dis- 
honesty. If you want to find the weak points of a 
man in order that you may conquer his objections 
or work your will upon him, you need, just as much, 
to recognize your own weaknesses, so that you may 
strengthen them. Every hour of your life subjects 



Planning for Success 133 

your will and your brain and your character to a 
constant succession of tests. The stronger you are 
the more easily you will sustain these shocks, and 
you can only gain strength by welcoming criticism 
and recognizing when it is true instead of ignoring 
it. The strong man thrives on criticism and oppo- 
sition. The more he gets of them the more they 
enable him to strengthen himself, and he becomes 
strong because he uses them for his own purposes, 
while the weak man ignores them. 

The greatest hindrance to ability is idleness. 
There are degrees of idleness. Not only are the 
loafers idle, but the man who wastes his time and 
effort is an idler also. If you delay until to-morrow 
something which you can do to-day, you deprive 
to-morrow of some of its power. If you waste time 
over work which you need not do, you deprive your- 
self of the power of achievement, which can come 
from well-directed action alone. The director of a 
vast organization once said to me : " It is the con- 
tinual effort which tells." Spasmodic bursts of 
energy do not accomplish so much in the end as 
the steady work which utilizes every moment to 
make it productive of the fullest advantage. 

Do not be content to aim high and to map out 
the road you must travel to reach your goal. You 
must map out painfully every foot of the way. This 
means that you must plan out your work for each 



134 Personal Power 

day so that it may play its due part in ministering 
to your progress. It is a good plan at the end of 
each day to make a list of things which must be 
done on the morrow, and to be sure that when the 
morrow comes these things are done. By doing this 
you will make sure of progress instead of leaving 
it to chance. The fool trusts to luck, and leaves his 
work to take care of its own results. The wise man 
takes no chances. He plans ahead, and tho things 
may not turn out just as he expects he makes his 
progress inevitable. 

Days are made up of moments, and the day's 
work is made up of countless tasks. See that each 
moment is spent in profitable labor, and when you 
have finished one piece of work let your motto be, 
" What is the next thing? " 

Business is not all of life, and these rules apply to 
life generally. Plan out your mental progress in 
the same way. If you want to be well read, make a 
list of books and see that you read them in a speci- 
fied time, instead of reading haphazard. Read for a 
purpose, and have a definite end in view, and you 
will enjoy your reading all the more and obtain 
from it all that you want, which is education. 
Whatever study you take up, to develop the talents 
which give you pleasure, treat it in the same. sys- 
tematic fashion. It is better to give five minutes a 



Planning for Success 135 

day regularly to mind-improvement than to devote 
longer periods to it at intervals. 

What is worth doing is worth doing well, and if a 
thing is not worth doing you ought not to waste 
time over it at all. Do everything as perfectly as 
you can, do everything for some purpose, and while 
you add to life's pleasures you will derive the un- 
speakable satisfaction of progress, which only 
comes from patient labor faithfully performed for 
the love of the working. 



CHAPTER XIV 

USING YOUR FOUR EYES 

" Wo see clearly is poetry, prophecy, religion — all in one." 

Ruskin. 

OF late years one of the most impressive fea- 
tures of the theater has been the splendor of 
its scenic effects. A new era has been inaugurated 
which at its inception left the spectator amazed 
with delight. The effects of dawn and sunset are 
reproduced on the stage with such fidelity that they 
stir up emotions within us, aided by the art of the 
actor and the witchery of music, that often affect us 
more strongly than the real manifestations of the 
wonders of Nature which are going on around us 
every day. In the theater these things are forced 
upon our attention, and we realize their beauty, 
while the infinitely greater beauty of the real thing 
is unnoticed. People talk of the ineffable splendor 
of a sunrise on the mountains. A man once told 
me that the most magnificent sight he ever saw was 
a sunrise on the Straits of Gibraltar, when the sun 
literally rose up out of the sea, and little by little 
tinged the heavens and the waters with a myriad 

136 



Using your Four Eyes 137 

diverse colors, sparkling, scintillating, and blending 
into the majesty and wonder of the dawn. 

We see with delight poor images of these things 
at the theater, and do not heed them as they are 
spread before us across the wide spaces of earth 
and sky and water day by day. " Eyes have we, 
and we see not," because we have not trained our 
eyes to see. Suppose, for one moment, that the sky 
had always been gray and overcast since you were 
born, and that one summer evening a wind sprang 
up and the clouds dispersed, revealing the majesty 
of the firmament of stars and all the wonders of the 
heavens. Should you not realize that a miracle had 
happened? Yet how often do you look up and see 
with discerning eyes this inspiring and uplifting 
spectacle f 

All the gifts of Nature are to be had for the ask- 
ing. They are your right, but, like all gifts worth 
having, they must be striven for. You must train 
your eye to look for them and your brain to hear 
and understand. Then you will see how the earth 
can take on the form of Paradise, and will hear in 
its sounds the harmonies of heaven. 

People grumble at the rain. They put up their 
umbrellas and with eyes fixed on the ground before 
them plod steadily on, complaining of the incon- 
venience. Look up ! See how the reflection of the 
lamps on the wet roads paints a fairy picture that 



138 Personal Power 

the harsher dryness never shows you. Is there not 
some compensation for a little inconvenience in such 
a sight as that? The great French sculptor, Rodin, 
was tremendously imprest with the atmospheric 
effects of London at twilight. Have you really ever 
seen them? The late Melton Prior, the famous 
English war-correspondent and traveler, used to 
walk in a small County Council park on the borders 
of Greater London and declare that at sunset he 
was transported to Japan. These people saw with 
understanding eyes, and the same things are there 
for you to see, wherever you live. 

You have got two pairs of eyes. One pair is in 
your head, and the other in your mind. Most people 
use only the eyes that are in their heads. They de- 
liberately blind the mental eyes, and for that reason 
they do not really see half the things that come into 
their range of vision. Suppose you are traveling 
out of London, westward. As you pass Exeter you 
know you are nearing the sea, and you eagerly look 
out for it. By and by you catch a glimpse of it in 
the distance, and as it spreads out before your view, 
you feast your gaze on it as a welcome relief from 
the streets of London. You notice its brilliant 
coloring, the ships sailing on it, the red cliffs and 
the sands, and you get a veritable banquet of plea- 
sure. After a fortnight at the seaside you probably 
notice nothing but the people on the beach, the band, 



Using your Four Eyes 139 

the promenade, and the hundred trivial things that 
you can see anywhere. All the pleasant things 
you watched for so eagerly in the train are still 
there, but you do not look for them. You are not 
using the eyes in your mind. 

Take the case of a solitary flower. One man 
may look at it and see just a flower and nothing 
more. He may see its marvelous beauty of form 
and coloring without noticing them, because he does 
not see with the eye of understanding. Another 
man will see these things because he looks with the 
eyes of his mind, and he will see also valleys and 
hills carpeted with a thousand hues of flowers and 
herbs, because he has trained himself to see and 
look for these things, which are conjured up in his 
mental vision. 

It is obvious that the eye has a most powerful 
effect on the mind. The dullest person is exhila- 
rated by bright sunshine, not knowing that there is 
always brightness for those who look for it. The 
more we actually see by concentrating our attention 
on detail, the more we shall store up in our mind for 
the eye of the mind to see whenever it wills. Thus 
the habit of observation strengthens the imagina- 
tion, and, as we know, it is the men who dream 
dreams that affect most potently the progress of the 
world. Train yourself to dream along practical 
lines. Look out for realities, and you will act in a 



140 Personal Power 

practical manner. The artist gets his color schemes 
by observing Nature. Suppose an artist did not see 
with the eye of understanding? He would know 
that a set of railway lines are equidistant apart, and 
looking at a section they appear to be so. But he 
looks at the lines receding into the distance and 
notices that they appear to meet. The man who 
first observed this illusion laid the foundation for 
modern art, in the sense that he started the practice 
of observation with the eye of the mind, as well as 
the concentrated and restricted gaze of the physical 
optic. The artist must use his mental eyes, or his 
drawings will be hopelessly grotesque. We should 
laugh at the draftsman who drew his railway lines 
without making them meet ; but is it not true that 
by lack of observation we miss many details of 
knowledge that would prevent our actions and 
thoughts being imperfect? 

Get into the habit of looking for things. When 
you pass a show-window, notice the color-scheme. 
Sometimes when you are repapering a room or re- 
covering your furniture, the observation will come 
in useful. If you get into the habit of observing 
closely with your eyes, you will find that it will 
make you intent with your other senses. You will 
notice people 's voices and habits of speech, you will 
appreciate people's motives, you will look for cause 
when you see effect. These things are the mental 



Using your Four Eyes 141 

eyes, waking up and taking in the vision of intangi- 
ble things. 

We talk of the eye of faith. This is the mental 
eye trained to look in a special direction. Deeply 
religious people concentrate their minds on spiri- 
tual things, and who shall say what heavenly sights 
they see, or what heavenly sounds they hear? If 
you concentrate your attention on everything you 
see you will open up to your mental eye a vista that 
will astonish you. In days of gloom you will see 
the sunshine and the sea — a vision at your command 
absolutely — to cheer and enliven each day. People 
miss the glories of the world because they do not 
look for them. They are so in the habit of looking 
for perfection hereafter that they cannot see it 
here. They sing in church, " Oh, for the pearly 
gates of heaven ! " not realizing that, for those who 
see, the streets of the city are paved with gold. 

There is beauty and gladness all around you if 
you will only see it. The mental eye will always 
show it to you. It will correct the errors of the 
physical eye. Where the casual glance sees only the 
man, the searching glance of the eye sees the God in 
the man. The mental eye is the eye of the spirit ; 
the eye that is in touch with the Divine in us. It 
opens to our gaze all the splendors of earth and sky. 
It shows us the brightness when the physical eye 
sees only the cloud, and discovers for us the trea- 



142 Personal Power 

sures and gifts that the Creator has supplied for us. 
Look for beauty and gladness in everything. Reso- 
lutely refuse to see the black and sordid things of 
life. The world is a bright and lovely place, and 
only your own thought can darken it, just as your 
own thought can transform the blackest gloom into 
the radiance of the noonday. He that seeks shall 
find. 

" Keep your face always towards the sunshine, 
And the shadows will fall behind yoW 



CHAPTER XV 

THE USES OF ORATORY AND CONVERSATION 

" The first duty of a man is to speak — that is his chief business 
in this world." 

Robebt Lours Stevenson. 

THE spoken word is the most powerful weapon 
a man can command in his dealings with his 
fellow men. In conjunction with the eye it conveys 
all his personal magnetism to his hearer or to his 
audience. The eye has a double use. It conveys 
impressions to the brain and it conveys impressions 
from the brain. Both of these uses need cultiva- 
tion. 

You probably have never thought about the 
importance of your eyes in conversation, but if you 
are to make full use of your mental powers it is 
quite necessary for you to do so. You need to culti- 
vate a concentration of gaze, but not quite in the 
sense that a hypnotist does. I have heard men com- 
plain of persons who gazed at them so fixedly that 
it made them feel uncomfortable. Do not be like 
that, or you will lose all the pleasing effect you want 
to create. Get the habit of looking straight at the 

143 



144 Personal Power 

person you are addressing, so that he can feel that 
he has your whole interest and attention. That is 
the impression you wish him to receive. People do 
not like your eyes to wander round the room while 
they are talking to you, nor do they want you to 
read the private papers lying on their desks. They 
want to see your eyes, because they tell them what 
is going on in your mind. 

Many business men sit with their backs to the 
light, while they place you facing the window. In 
this way they can read your face whilst hiding their 
own. One man I know told me once that whenever 
he finds himself in such a position he shades his 
eyes with his hands until the act is commented 
upon. Then he explains that he is at a disadvan- 
tage facing the light and prefers to sit elsewhere ! 
If a man wants to read your eyes you have a right 
to read his as well; and this story shows the 
important part played by the eye in conversation. 

Your eye expresses your emotions. When you 
laugh with your lips your eyes laugh with them if 
the emotion is genuine, not otherwise. When you 
are sorry your eyes show it, as they reveal truth 
or falsehood to the shrewd observer. Let your eyes 
speak and proclaim the interest you feel in what 
you are saying. 

One of the best salesmen I ever knew called his 
mouth his ' ' bread-and-butter machine. ' ' He knew 



Use of Oratory and Conversation 145 

the value of his conversation. The advocate or the 
orator recognizes the same truth just as forcibly; 
but the average man, to whom it is equally impor- 
tant, gives it scant attention. If it is worth the 
while of an advocate, or an orator, or a salesman, to 
cultivate the gift of conversation, it is worth your 
while too, because you cannot exercise the charm of 
your intellect upon another person unless you have 
command of your speech. 

Your speech in conversation creates its effect in 
two ways. Your voice and the manner of your 
enunciation tell the hearer what sort of man you 
are, while they charm or repel him: the way you 
use your voice may make your arguments forcible, 
and indicate your conviction of the truth of what 
you say. Your conversation should reveal the cul- 
ture of your mind, and your knowledge of what you 
speak about. You can now see how important it is 
that you should know your subject thoroughly, and 
know how to talk about it. 

Affectation is the deadly sin of conversation. Be 
natural and be cultured in your manner of talk. 
You can be just as forcible when you speak in a 
quiet voice as by shouting, and you will be much 
more convincing, and much more agreeable to lis- 
ten to. 

The fundamental rules of elocution are the same 
for conversation as for oratory. They are based 



146 Personal Power 

upon control of the breath and proper articulation. 
They are varied slightly for the singer, as will be 
shown. 

The first thing is to breathe properly, and 
the right method is worth knowing because deep 
breathing is very helpful to good health. Most 
people, when they take a deep breath, do so from 
the chest, with the result that their lungs are not 
properly filled. The right way, which fills the lungs 
to their full capacity, is as follows : Place the hands 
just above the waist so that they touch the lowest 
extremities of the ribs. You will then be able to 
feel the action of the muscles. Now expel the air 
from the lungs by breathing out. This is the first 
step in deep breathing and in preparing for ora- 
tory. Your lungs are now empty, and to fill them 
you begin by thrusting out the muscles of the stom- 
ach where your hands are. As you do this you 
breathe in slowly until your lungs are completely 
filled, instead of only partly so. If you practise 
this you will soon do it unconsciously, and you will 
gain added health if you do it in the open air, 
because you will get so much oxygen into your 
system. 

Now, the singer aims at controlling the outlet of 
his breath so that he can sing long phrases without 
breathing again. Nothing so much stamps the 
amateur as the practise of taking breath in the 



Uses of Oratory and Conversation 147 

middle of a sentence. When you sing, your sen- 
tences are prescribed for you, and they are further 
denned by the musical phrases. The orator has no 
such restrictions, and the practised speaker makes 
a point of replenishing his lungs with air at every 
pause he makes. If this is judiciously done it is 
possible to speak for hours without fatigue and 
without loss of quality and tone in the voice. 

Compare the phrasing of the following, and you 
will appreciate the difference: — 

The Singer: " It is not mine to sing the stately grace 
(breath), The great soul beaming in my lady's face " 
(breath). 

The Speaker: " It is not mine (breath) to sing the 
stately grace (breath), The great soul (breath) beaming in 
my lady's face" (breath). 

Singing and speaking are closely connected, and 
each helps the other, so that in cultivating an agree- 
able speaking voice you will find it very beneficial 
to practise singing also. If you have no time to 
take singing lessons, remember this: Singing is 
speaking to a tune, and the fact that the voice is 
called upon to rise and fall as the composer dictates 
does not justify you in putting your accents on the 
wrong words. The tendency is to accentuate every 
word coming on a high note. If you do this when 
you should not, the effect is ludicrous. When you 
are learning a song, say each phrase separately, one 



148 Personal Power 

after the other, so that you can find out exactly how 
to accentuate it, and then sing each phrase (just 
after you have spoken it), keeping to the same 
accentuation. With a little practise you will soon 
be able to take high notes without accentuating the 
word if it should be subordinated to some other. In 
this way your songs will make sense, and even if 
you have a weak voice you will strengthen it, 
while you will give pleasure by singing artistically. 

Singing will teach you to control your breath, and 
will give fulness and quality to your voice. You 
will find that you can speak loudly without forcing 
your breath, and you will help the habit of pro- 
nouncing your words clearly. 

It is said with truth that if you take care of the 
consonants the vowels will take care of themselves. 
If you listen to a practised speaker you will notice 
that he pronounces his " m " (at the end of a word) 
almost as if it were " emmer," his " n " as if it 
were ' ' enner, ' ' his " d " as if it were ' ' der, ' ' and 
so on. Make a list of words in which these conso- 
nants come at the end, and practise speaking them 
in the way I have indicated. It will sound strange at 
first, but you will modify the exaggeration in ac- 
tual talking, while the tendency to exaggeration in 
public speaking will not matter, because it is imper- 
ative that your consonants should be heard clearly. 
In singing, you will find that the consonants " m " 



Uses of Oratory and Conversation 149 

and " n " can be snng almost like vowels, while 
even ' ' d " and " t " can be sung on a note almost 
like vowels. Practise them alone on scales, and it 
will show yon how yon can sound them, while it will 
help you to do so instinctively. 

Y/hen speaking in public, it is important that 
you should speak slowly, or the " ring " of a hall, 
especially if it be a large one, will drown your 
words, which will run into one another. The larger 
the hall the slower you should speak; and if you 
observe this rule you can talk in the largest hall 
with confidence that all you say will be understood. 

The tricks of oratory, such as declamation and 
gesture, cannot be taught in the scope of such a 
chapter as this. If you want to be a first-class 
speaker you will gain great benefit by taking 
elocution lessons and joining a debating-society. 
Every young man ought to join such a society and 
make a point of speaking regularly: only by such 
practise will he learn the habit of ' ' thinking on his 
feet," which is an invaluable asset to any man. 
You never know when you will be called upon to 
speak at a dinner or a meeting, or some social func- 
tion, and it will be helpful to you if you are able to 
do so effectively. Many a man has first attracted 
the notice of people, who have greatly assisted him 
in after life, by public speaking of some kind or 
other ; and in these days, when glib speech so often 



150 Personal Power 

serves in the place of real ability, the power of ora- 
tory is a very desirable gift to possess. 

In public speaking of any kind you have two 
courses open to you — or a combination of both, 
which is better still. You can be informative or you 
can be amusing: audiences generally prefer the 
latter. If you have very little to say, or are ner- 
vous, you can build up quite a reputation by cut- 
ting your speech short. The dullest speaker who sits 
down at the end of three minutes can be as effective, 
and as pleasing to his hearers, as the accomplished 
man who can entertain them for twenty, or the 
fluent speaker who can bore them for half an hour. 

Many a famous orator has made a practise of 
writing out his speeches and learning them by 
heart. It is a good plan for the budding orator to 
adopt, and he will gain confidence at his first 
attempts if he knows that his complete speech re- 
poses ready to his hand in his trousers pocket. 
Nothing, however, can replace the ability to speak 
at a moment's notice, and such aids as have been 
described are but helps to the consummation of 
being able to deliver yourself of your thoughts 
without the preliminary of long preparation. 

Do not think that public speaking is not neces- 
sary for you. Even if you never need to address 
audiences, you will gain mental power by the habit 
of logical reasoning which comes naturally at a 



Uses of Oratory and Conversation 151 

given moment. Moreover, the practise of speaking 
at debating clubs, besides exercising yonr faculties, 
rubbing your wits against those of other people, 
and providing you with much useful knowledge, 
will strengthen your will and add immeasurably to 
your self-confidence. For this reason alone it is 
necessary to you. If you are used to standing by 
your opinions in the face of opposition, you will 
gain force for your everyday conversation, while 
you acquire a polish of manner which will make 
you a most agreeable companion. 

Conversation is not a business asset only, it is 
also a social asset. It is the duty of every man to 
be entertaining to his family and to his friends. It 
is a crime against the coming generation when 
parents insist upon their children remaining silent 
during meals. Parents owe it to their children to 
encourage them to air their views, so that they may 
gain knowledge and the habit of being able to take 
their part in conversation. 

Nothing stamps the cultivated mind so much as 
the power to interest a total stranger. The ability 
to do so without discussing the weather, theaters, 
dances, or politics, or, above all, religion, is a hall- 
mark of real conversational ability. Every person 
has some pet subject upon which he is specially well 
informed. A few tactful questions will find out 
what it is, and then, if you are content to do your 



152 Personal Power 

full share of the listening as well as of the talking, 
the conversation will proceed smoothly enough. It 
is your duty to use conversation as a means of 
learning from other people what they can teach 
you. The intelligent use of conversation is a great 
educator. 

Never say anything about anybody which you 
would not wish them to hear. Never say anything 
that will hurt the susceptibilities of the person you 
are talking to. Never be afraid to utter your opin- 
ions and to stand by them. Never miss the chance 
of saying a kind word either of absent friends or 
about your listener. If you will bear these points in 
mind and try always to be interesting, even at the 
family table, you will soon become a proficient con- 
versationalist. "When you have acquired the art of 
talking well, practise diligently the harder task of 
listening well, and you will become a perfect talker. 



CHAPTER XVI 

GENEROSITY AS A MENTAL FORCE 

" They who give have all things; they who withhold have 
nothing." Hindu Proverb. 

E generous. " Go thy way, sell whatsoever 
thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up 
the cross, and follow Me." We can not take the 
Divine injunction to the rich man literally, but we 
can give generously to those around us, and find our 
treasure thereby. 

You can give without giving money. Financial 
aid may often prove a curse to the recipient, when 
the helping hand and the kindly word would prove 
a real blessing. Do not keep your kind thoughts to 
yourself; give them freely in your speech. Give 
smiles instead of frowns, and you will receive 
smiles back again; give love, and you will receive 
love. Like attracts like, and whatever you give in 
full measure you will receive back with interest 
from the world. 

One of my friends said to me once: " I owe 
my success to the fact that I never kept back 

153 



154 Personal Power 

an idea from my manager. I wondered sometimes 
when I got a more than usually good notion if I 
should not keep it in reserve until I became a 
manager myself. I never did so, and I am sure that 
if I had followed that policy I should never have 
been in management to-day. I owe my success 
largely to the fact that I always gave the best of my 
ideas to my employers." 

Many and many a time people have said to me : 
" Keep something up your sleeve. Don't give your 
best ideas away until you are sure of your posi- 
tion. ' ' The man who keeps his best ideas till he is 
sure of his position is the man who fails to ' ' make 
good," and is insecure every moment of his busi- 
ness life. The habit of keeping ideas back stultifies 
them. It is only by giving away ideas generously 
that others come to take their place. The more 
ideas you think of and the more you work them out 
for the benefit of your employers, the more will 
ideas flow into your mind. 

I had the advice to " hoard " given to me so 
often that I mentioned it to several people. I deter- 
mined to find out if successful men could be found 
to give weight to such an astounding doctrine. One 
very successful author seemed to think at first that 
there was something in it until I put it to him this 
way : ' ' My experience is that my ideas do not dry 
up by giving them away freely. I always find that 



Generosity as a Mental Force 155 

the more ideas I get and use the more come to me 
to replace them. " " You are quite right, ' ' he said, 
and he proceeded to give me an example from his 
own experience. " I lately have had some friends 
stopping with me, ' ' he told me, ' ' and for a day and 
a half I did not work. When I started again, think- 
ing was an effort, and the ideas came only with the 
greatest difficulty. After a day or two, when I had 
got into mental trim again, my brain was working 
actively, and only to-day, coming down here in the 
train, two plots for stories occurred to me. ' ' 

Rich people may be divided into two classes: 
those who hoard money and are stingy, and those 
who make money by spending liberally but not ex- 
travagantly. The former generally have a big capi- 
tal to start with. It is the exception to find a mean 
man become rich by the simple practise of hoard- 
ing. A financial magnate once laid down the broad 
principle in regard to money : ' ' You must put it 
down before you can pick it up again. ' ' Use your 
common sense in regard to spending. I know a man 
who earns no more money than he could earn by 
industry if he had not a tithe of his intellectual 
abilities. This is his story: He had a university 
education, and his college chum was a man who is 
now a millionaire. When he left college he found he 
had to earn his own living, not in the manner he had 
expected, but in a more laborious way. He came to 



156 Personal Power 

the conclusion that he must save all he could, so he 
shunned society, denied himself all sorts of luxu- 
ries, and put by all he could. He deliberately cut 
himself off from those associates who were advanc- 
ing rapidly in the world — men who liked him and 
would have been only too glad to help him — because 
he was afraid to spend the money that was neces- 
sary to keep him in their company — money for 
little dinners, entertainments, and excursions. His 
friends who could have helped him forgot all about 
him; he lost touch with them, got into narrow 
grooves out of the wide spheres of life, and so lost 
his ambition and allowed men of less ability, with 
less advantages, but with more " push," to get 
ahead of him. It was a mistaken self-sacrifice. 
You cannot make money unless you know how to 
spend it. In the unthinkable event of your doing 
so, while narrowing your mind with thoughts of 
petty economy, your money would be of no use to 
you because you would lose all capacity for enjoy- 
ment. 

" Money," said a rich, self-made man, il is not 
the root of all evil, but the love of it for itself un- 
doubtedly is. ' ' The pursuit of riches, therefore, if 
undertaken with the firm resolve to use them well, 
and if it is not suffered to engross unduly the facul- 
ties and the time, may well be commended. 

It needs strong common sense to exercise the 



Generosity as a Mental Power 157 

faculty of generosity, and perhaps this is the reason 
why judicious generosity is so often an aid to suc- 
cess. People like the generous man, just as they 
distrust the mean man. Paltriness of habit begets 
a paltry and mean mind. You cannot expand your 
thoughts when you are keeping your mind upon 
the saving of pennies. Live within your income, 
and, as some cute American has said, " Never get 
into debt unless you can see your way out of it." 
But do not refuse to dip your hand into your pocket 
to satisfy a generous impulse, or to help in the 
mutual enjoyment of yourself and your friends, be- 
cause you think you will be the richer for keeping 
your money. Edison, at the age of fifty, spent 
practically his whole fortune in connection with his 
experiments, saying, " I can at any time get a job 
at seventy-five dollars a month as a telegrapher, 
and that will amply take care of all my personal re- 
quirements. ' ' That is the proper spirit in which to 
regard the spending of money. If it is worth spend- 
ing, spend it within the limits of your resources, 
but do not spend grudgingly when you can spend 
with profit either to your well-being or to your busi- 
ness. 

Of your natural gifts you can never give enough. 
Hundreds of men are still sitting on clerk's stools 
because they gave grudgingly of their time and 
their labor to their employers. Your employer is 



158 Personal Power 

entitled to make a profit out of your services, and 
it is your duty to give him as big a profit as you can. 
If you can crowd into your day's work as much 
labor as the average clerk in the same office gets 
through in a day and a half, you will not be the one 
to be shunted when the lean days come. I knew a 
man who, starting from the very bottom of the 
ladder, amassed a fortune of three hundred thou- 
sand dollars. He attributed his success to his de- 
sire to get through all the work he could for his em- 
ployer. He was so eager to do all the extra work 
possible, that one day his master said to him half 
chaffingly, " Sit down and let someone else have a 
turn. ' ' That is the only spirit that makes for suc- 
cess. It is the generous instinct that gives labor 
willingly. The more profit you can make for your 
employer the more you will be worth to him, 
and the more you will get ; but the getting must be 
a secondary thing. First and foremost must come 
the giving. 

Develop the generous instincts of your mind. 
Do not be mean and petty in your thoughts, but 
cultivate wide and generous instincts and sympa- 
thies. If you are not generous to your employers 
and to your friends and family, they will not be 
generous to you. They will reward you, too, in a 
grudging spirit. We ask much of the Great Giver. 
The meanest Christian (or, to be more accurate, 



Generosity as a Mental Force 159 

" professed " Christian) asks for " showers of 
blessings. ' ' Man, who is made in the likeness of his 
Creator, should give greatly of his own gifts, ren- 
dering back to the Great Bestower the munificence 
that is given in trust. Nothing can compensate for 
the loss of mind-greatness that is developed only by 
generous instincts. No money can buy gratitude 
and love and true friendship. These are the things 
that inevitably come from real generosity, and each 
one of us, within the limits of our own minds and 
purses, can be generous, and find the double reward 
for ' ' him that gives and him that takes. ' ' 



♦;c* 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE GREATNESS OF LITTLE THINGS 

" The labourer will be called to account for his careful cultv- 
vation, not for the abundance of his crop." 

St. Francis de Sales. 

THE late Sir Eichard Tangye, whose business 
sagacity built up the great ' ' Cornish ' ' En- 
gineering Works at Birmingham, England, and ex- 
tended the activities of Tangye, Limited, through- 
out the world, was so tremendously imprest with 
the significance of little things that he wrote and 
published a small book to which he gave the title 
selected for the head of this chapter. 

It is the modern habit to worship bigness. The 
people we are told to admire are those who conceive 
vast undertakings and carry them through success- 
fully. There seems a romance about ' ' thinking in 
millions," which is apparently lacking in smaller 
conceptions. Sir Eichard Tangye was a man with 
big thoughts, who did big things. He controlled 
hundreds of workmen, he traveled in all parts of the 
world, and he was ever searching for ideas, and 

always seeking the expansion of his big undertak- 

160 



The Greatness of Little Things 161 

ings. Yet with it all lie was most profoundly 
imprest with the vital importance of the little 
things of life, and we, who are satiated almost with 
talk of bigness, may well consider the significance 
of the mature conclusion of a great captain of in- 
dustry that the small things may well be the great 
things after all. 

We cannot all think in millions, and we cannot 
all aspire to vast achievements. That is no reason 
why we should despise ourselves or look down upon 
others because our daily work and our general life 
may be concerned with detail and with what seem to 
be petty happenings. The most colossal undertak- 
ing in history was the tower of Babel, and it ended 
in confusion. The greatest conception that the 
human mind is capable of is the creation of the 
world, and we know that that took place little by 
little. In all the vast progress of the universe to- 
ward the final great perfection, the movement is a 
gradual one — little by little — and every human be- 
ing takes part in it and is essential to it. 

The measure of our performance is bounded 
only by our minds. If we " think in millions ' ' our 
achievements will be correspondingly big, but our 
thoughts must take count of thousands of details, 
and we can only learn to think on the grand scale 
by acquiring a knowledge of details, and to do that 
we must recognize the sublimity of little things. 



162 Personal Power 

Tennyson expressed the sensible ideal when he 
wrote : 

" And I must work through months of toil, 

And years of cultivation, 
Upon my proper patch of soil, 

To grow my own plantation. 
I'll take the showers as they fall, 

I will not vex my bosom; 
Enough, if at the end of all, 

A little garden blossom." 

Whatever yonr hand finds to do is noble work, 
because it is necessary to the great scheme of the 
universe. If you have a little garden, it is not un- 
worthy of your care and attention to make it bright 
with flowers for the joy of your family and your 
friends. If you live in a small house, you can be 
proud of that house if it is a perfect home in minia- 
ture. The millionaire can only occupy one room at 
a time and eat one meal at a time. But for the 
labor of many a " small " man he could not own 
his mansions, and certainly he cannot enjoy the 
bountiful gifts of life more than the man whose 
work brings him a sufficiency and pleases the doer 
because it is well done. Except for a few extra 
luxuries that soon pall, he is no better off than 
the man with a small income who possesses the 
capacity for contentment and enjoyment. The 
truth is that things really worth having are cheap, 
and the greatest gift of all is the capacity for en- 



The Greatness of Little Things 163 

joyment. If you can glory in the morning sun- 
shine and know the peace of a summer night, you 
are luckier far than the millionaire, worried and 
anxious with colossal undertakings. If you can sit 
down of an evening and enjoy a book until bedtime, 
you may know that you are among the fortunate 
ones of the earth. Money cannot buy the moral 
uplifting of the man in harmony with Nature, who 
sees in the starry heavens the fields of Paradise, 
and knows that " God is seen God, in the Star, in 
the Stone, in the Flesh, in the Soul, in the Sod. ' ' 

Unless we can do little things well we can never 
do big things. We must ennoble our little duties, 
and we shall find them grow into big achievements. 
Little acts of thoughtfulness, little kindnesses, little 
tendernesses, little charities, make up the sum total 
of a large, generous and lovable mind. Little tasks 
well done may make up a lifetime of fruitful labor 
far more useful to the world than the spasmodic 
effort to do herculean work which, in any case, could 
only be accomplished by a continual application to 
a thousand trifling details. It is far better to per- 
form a small undertaking than to dream a big one 
and fail through lack of application. 

There is a very thin dividing line between success 
and failure. The man who succeeds owes his suc- 
cess to the possession of a little more ability or in- 
dustry than the man who most likely envies him 



164 Personal Power 

his "good fortune." He seizes the little oppor- 
tunities that other men miss, and finds that they 
open the way to big advantages that he never sus- 
pected were within his reach. Men in lonely farms 
have educated themselves by seizing odd moments 
for reading. The habit of using time that other 
people waste enables men to outstrip their competi- 
tors in the race of life. A small nut becoming loose 
can stop a great machine, and a small mistake from 
carelessness or lack of observation or of knowledge 
can ruin a great enterprise. \s 

Use the little gifts that life gives you. Do every 
little kindness you can. Use every little moment 
you can. Learn a little poem every day, and memo- 
rize a few lines of good prose. Make a point of 
doing a little more than you are paid to do, and 
try and do a little more to-day than you did yester- 
day. You will be astonished at the growth of your 
knowledge, the increase of your capacity, and the 
enlargement of your opportunities. ' ' To him that 
hath shall be given. ' ' All that you learn will stand 
you in good stead some day. Neither your time nor 
your labor will be wasted. You will gradually gain 
those added accomplishments and those extra capa- 
bilities that distinguish the successful man from his 
fellows. Above all, watch your little failings and 
faults, and weed them out. Never despise them, for 
they grow big, just as little virtues do. 



The Greatness of Little Things 165 

All your talents are small compared with what 
they will become if you cultivate them carefully. 
Be content to make gradual progress so long as it 
really is progress, and then, when you look at the 
end of all to find " a little garden blossom," you 
will discover with surprize that what you really 
have cultivated is no mere garden plot, but a 
veritable and worthy portion of the Paradise of 
achievement. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE ACTIVE MIND 

" An action ivill not be right unless the will be right, for from 
thence is the action derived." Seneca. 



T 



HE more we develop our mental powers the 
more we recognize the necessity of arraign- 
ing all popular fetishes before the bar of our rea- 
son. The hustle habit ought to be summarily tried 
and quickly condemned. People generally hustle 
when they should not, and do not hustle when they 
should. The only time when it is permissible to 
hustle is when you get out of your morning train 
(after you have given your breakfast a chance to 
digest) and want to hurry to the office to get on 
with your work. Tearing about, shouting, and 
making yourself a nuisance by knocking things over 
and racking other people's nerves, does not make 
for efficiency. When a man does that for a while he 
tires himself physically, and cannot keep up the 
pressure. Working under forced draught is all 
very well when it is absolutely necessary. Travel- 
ing under full steam is quite good enough for the 
whole of the working day, and the physical and 

166 









The Active Mind 167 

mental engines will work much more efficiently 
under steady pressure than under intermittent 
strains of forced draft. 

Did you ever try to operate an adding-machine ! 
In many banks these machines perform the work 
of several clerks. You simply press the adding 
keys one after another as necessary, and then, by a 
pull of a lever, the printed total is before your eyes. 
So long as you do your work accurately your totals 
will be correct, because the machine is infalli- 
ble. Immediately you get in a hurry you are liable 
to errors. 

In dealing with intricate and delicate work, it 
is always more satisfactory to go steadily at it, as 
you will save time and labor in the end. Imme- 
diately you start rushing about, you excite your 
brain and prevent it thinking clearly and logically. 
You can train your mind to work quickly and ac- 
curately, but that is quite different from hustling it. 

Like many another proverb, the saying, ' ' Time is 
money, " is so hackneyed that it conveys little mean- 
ing. It is like the pocket-handkerchief that you 
cannot find because it is in your pocket where it 
ought to be. If you spend your morning playing 
billiards with a man who might possibly give you 
orders later on, instead of calling on three or four 
others at their offices where they are actually trans- 
acting business, you are not making a very profit* 



168 Personal P^wcr 

able expenditure of time. There are more men sit- 
ting on clerks ' stools instead of in managers ' chairs 
because they do not know how to apportion their 
expenditure of time than from any other reason. 
The man who, with the ability to get orders, wastes 
half his time in compiling lists of possible cus- 
tomers when he might be cultivating actual buyers 
is wasting his golden chances. 

The tabloid is a very convenient thing in busi- 
ness as well as in the food and medicine line. Short 
letters get home when long ones do not, and they 
economize your typist's time as well as your own, 
and enlarge the extent of her activities. Short 
interviews are often not possible, but do not wait 
long after your man takes his watch out of his 
pocket. Short delays — by which I mean the utmost 
possible dispatch in carrying out instructions — are 
always profitable and create an impression of 
smartness and enterprise; and, finally, when it 
comes down to the question of cash, short reckon- 
ings make long friendships. 

Make your contracts clear, and do not leave the 
way open for dissatisfaction. The things you can- 
not be short about are your temper and your busi- 
ness hours. There is, however, a danger in work- 
ing late. The man who is careful of his time man- 
ages to crowd more work into one day than the 
careless man can into three. 



The Active Mind 169 

The mistake we make is to confuse " hustle " 
with energy. There is no hustle in Nature, tho 
there is abundant energy. The seed, as it sprouts, 
forces its way through the covering earth with 
an almost irresistible force. Yet it does it so 
calmly and quietly that there is apparently no mo- 
tion at all. The closer we get down to Nature for 
our models, the safer will be the guidance of our 
facts. Everything in Nature is orderly and system- 
atic. The seasons revolve in regular sequence, 
and each has its duty to perform to the year. We 
should apportion our time carefully, and see to it 
that each day we accomplish something. Continual 
concentrated effort is Nature's recipe for a fruit- 
ful earth. Do a little every day, and you will ac- 
complish much by the end of the year. 

Suppose you resolve to indulge yourself in a 
course of reading of standard literature for the 
purpose of enlarging your mind. Perhaps you are 
so busy that you find but little time for study. Take 
advantage of this suggestion, and prove to yourself 
the value of doing a little each day. Choose any 
book you like to start with. Resolve to devote ten 
minutes each morning to reading a portion of it 
carefully. As you walk to your office, turn over 
in your mind what you have read. You will be 
surprized how quickly you read the book and how 
familiar you become with its contents. 



170 Personal Power 

Many men have educated themselves in their 
spare time by adopting such methods as these. You 
should do it also. Ask yourself what course of 
study will make you more efficient in your business, 
and then resolve to spend a few minutes each day 
upon it. The men who profit by what other people 
throw away make fortunes. The men who turn to 
profitable use the time that other men waste will 
outstrip their less provident competitors. The dif- 
ference between failure and success is marked by 
a very thin dividing line. It needs so little to cross 
that line either way. Eesolve that a few minutes of 
each day — which otherwise would be wasted — at 
any rate, shall be profitably used. In that way you 
will learn to use your time profitably, and you will 
direct your energies so wisely that you will have 
no need to hustle. When you begin to study the 
value of time you will ask yourself how you can 
best use your hours of recreation. 

The great curse of the age is the habit people 
have of watching others instead of doing things 
themselves. It is better to do a thing enthusiasti- 
cally and do it badly than to do nothing at all. The 
only excuse for watching another person doing any- 
thing is that we may learn how to do better our- 
selves. England is great because of great deeds. 
The looker-on is a feeble creature who is no good 
to anybody. He is the man who takes his very 



The Active Mind 171 

thoughts from other people, tho he is prepared 
to criticize anybody from the highest to the lowest 
— always provided that he is put to no trouble in 
doing so. He will tell you how to run the Empire 
— from the depths of his arm-chair; but confront 
him with the simplest task, and he becomes like the 
sailor who said: " I eats well, I drinks well, and 
I sleeps well ; but as soon as I sees a bit of work, I 
goes all of a tremble." 

No man can work well unless he can play well. 
u All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." 
Better dig in a garden than watch a football-match. 
You will be exercising your muscles while you drink 
in the good fresh air, and your daily work will be 
all the better for it. Clever business men recognize 
the value of healthy play. The biggest employers 
of labor foster the spirit of sport among their em- 
ployees, not by encouraging them to go to see foot- 
ball- and cricket-matches, but by subsidizing sports 
clubs by which the workpeople are encouraged to 
get exercise. 

A vigorous mind detests inaction. It drives its 
possessor to do things. A Colonial friend said to 
an Englishman recently : ' ' You people in England 
do not know what the Empire is. You ought to go 
into the Colonies and see the pioneers. Go up- 
country in Africa and see the bridge-builders. Go 
and see the men who do things doing them. ' ' Few 



172 Personal Power 

of us can travel, but we can all do things. The 
British Empire depends upon its trade, and the 
man who keeps a ledger well is a factor in the 
destiny of Empire. The man who begets strong, 
healthy children, and trains them to love vigorous 
work and exercise, is a pioneer of to-morrow's 
greatness for his country. The man who does 
work grudgingly, who loafs about during his lei- 
sure and finds his pleasure in watching others en- 
gage in strenuous exercise, is neglecting his duty 
to himself and to his country. 

We cannot be mentally efficient unless we are 
sound in body. The Greek ideal of " A sound mind 
in a healthy body ' ' ought to be the motto of every 
man. Preventable ill-health is a social crime, and 
many a man who continually feels out of sorts 
and finds his work suffer in consequence has only 
himself to blame. 

You must get into the habit of doing things. Get 
out of bed in the morning and have your bath. It 
is easier to slip into your clothes without it on cold 
mornings, but the bath has a good moral effect, 
because you have performed an action that was un- 
pleasant at first, and you have the double reward 
of having done something you did not want to do 
and the vigorous, clean, warm feeling that is worth 
the temporary shiver. 

Our fault is that we want to eat our cake and 



The Active Mind 173 

have it also. We want our country to be great, but 
we do not want to help that greatness by doing un- 
pleasant work. We want to make money in busi- 
ness but we do not want to work ten or twelve hours 
a day for a few years to establish ourselves. We 
want to bring off big undertakings, but we do not 
want to bother with drudging details nor to slave 
over uncongenial work so that we can gain the 
experience without which we can do nothing really 
satisfying. 

The habit of preferring to watch other people 
rather than go and do things ourselves is a 
canker that will eat the heart out of our efficiency. 
Whenever you see three men hammering in turn at 
a great nail on a roadway, you will notice a crowd 
of people watching them out of sheer idleness. If 
you can learn anything by stopping to look, then 
by all means stay. 

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her 
ways, and be wise: which, having no guide, over- 
seer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, 
and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long 
wilt thou sleep, sluggard? When wilt thou arise 
out of thy sleep 1 ' ' 

Among the bees, the drones or unemployables 
are killed. The human drone kills himself, he stul- 
tifies the healthy ambition that thrives on action, 
and remains in the mire when his destiny intended 



174 Personal Power 

him for the height. Our minds should be trained 
to be our overseers and rulers, to stimulate us to 
constant effort, to praise our successes and chide us 
for our failures. Most of us love flattery. We like 
to be told we are clever or successful. It is better 
to watch and judge our actions so constantly that 
we shall praise ourselves wisely for work well done, 
and blame ourselves for all waste of time and of 
talent. 

' ' He that gathereth in summer, ' ' says the prov- 
erb, * ' is a wise son ; but he that sleepeth in harvest 
is a son that causeth shame." 

All through Nature there is ceaseless action. As 
soon as your heart gets tired enough to stop beat- 
ing you die. "Why should you expect your organs 
to work and be unwilling to work yourself? 

Consider how the earth was made in seven days. 
One might think that the Creation was a sublime 
enough accomplishment to confer rest, and we are 
told that " God rested on the seventh day." But 
in order that the world may keep its place in 
the universe without colliding with other heavenly 
bodies and thereby being annihilated, in order that 
there may be light, and food and air and water, the 
Supreme Intelligence never rests. We take this as 
a matter of course, never thinking that every breath 
we draw should indeed be an inspiration to impel 



The Active Mind 175 

us by this sublime example to the utmost action of 
which we are capable. 

We are made in the image of our Creator, and 
are intended to deify that image. We cannot keep 
our bodies pure and vigorous by watching other 
people work and play. In the primitive state, man 
had to work before he could eat. The penalty of 
inaction to-day, even if it is not hunger, is a loss of 
physical and mental power. We must either ad- 
vance or degenerate. If we are not advancing in- 
tellectually by using our mental powers and train- 
ing them to higher efficiency, we are debasing the 
gift that the Creator gave us. If we are not keep- 
ing our bodies fit, by physical exercise, we must 
suffer loss of physique and be weaklings, and a 
blot upon the greatness of our national heritage. 

The habit of watching other people play pro- 
duces a spirit of criticism. It is easier to criticize 
than to act. Any fool can pull down and destroy, 
but it takes a clever man to create and build up. 
Destruction may be the work of a moment, while 
construction may be the labor of a lifetime. The 
only people who have a right to criticize are those 
who have done things and therefore have knowl- 
edge, and they should only criticize work that they 
can do better themselves. Criticism ought to take 
the form of finding out weaknesses in order to 
remedy defects. If anyone finds fault, he ought to 



176 Personal Power 

be able to rectify that fault himself. If you are 
merely criticizing other people, you are not help- 
ing yourself; and, after all, your first duty is to 
yourself. 

The habit of play, for instance, is valuable to 
a man's daily life. To master a game calls for 
patience and perseverance, and demands all those 
qualities which make for success. Sport, in its best 
forms, calls forth the finest spirit of a man. It 
teaches him to accept life's ups and downs with 
equal serenity. You cannot learn patience and per- 
severance by watching football-matches. You can 
learn them by playing yourself. When you can 
take a physical blow with a smile you will know 
how to take a setback in business with undaunted 
courage. Your country, your friends, your rela- 
tions, have need of men — sportsmen — who can do 
things, who can do them when fate seems against 
them as well as when fortune smiles. You are one 
of those men. Are you keeping yourself in perfect 
condition for your high endeavors, by action, or are 
you degenerating into a drone because you prefer 
to watch other people ? You must make your choice, 
and if you choose to be active you must cast off 
sloth now. 



CHAPTER XIX 

HOW TO GET GOOD LUCK 
" Fortune alters with change of conduct." — Sallust. 

THERE undoubtedly is an element in busi- 
ness which we call luck. Shakespeare says, 
' ' There is a divinity that shapes our ends, ' ' and it 
is certain that so long as we strive with all our 
might and with all our intellect, the course of our 
life will map itself out to a successful purpose. 

A lazy man once said to me: " The men who 
make a lot of money make it easily. They hit on 
some idea or some scheme which catches on, and 
they make fortunes. ' ' I will tell you a story which 
bears on that specious doctrine. A big machine 
once went wrong. The owners could not make it 
go again, try how they might. Eventually they 
called in an expert, who examined it for a few 
minutes, made a trifling adjustment, and imme- 
diately started it again. He asked for a big fee, 
and was told that it was out of all proportion to 
the work he had done. 

" You only took a minute doing it," he was told. 

177 



178 Personal Power 

" Yes," he replied, " but I took years learning 
how to do it. ' ' 

The men who make money so easily only do so 
after years of work and preparation. One often 
hears that the inventor makes but little out of his 
invention. The big money is made by the man who 
exploits his work. But that man knows by experi- 
ence where and how he can place the invention, and 
he either runs a risk himself or his character is so 
much believed in that others will take the risk for 
him. You cannot call the inventor unlucky because 
he is unable to place his invention himself. If he 
wanted to be lucky in that particular way, he would 
need to go through similar experiences to those of 
the man who exploited him. 

" Good courage breaks ill luck," says the prov- 
erb. Mental power, rightly directed, is the only 
force that creates good luck, using that term in its 
real sense. People talk about a ' ' lucky dramatist ' ' 
because he has a successful run. The truth is that 
any man who works hard is in the way of good 
luck. Hard work alone will not make you lucky. 
You must be ready to seize your good luck when it 
comes, and you must search for it until you find it. 

If you were in an unknown country where no man 
had ever been before, and the ground under your 
feet were full of gold, you would not know it was 
gold even if you happened to find it unless you 



How to get Good Luck 179 

possessed a knowledge of metals. You could not 
call yourself unlucky because you were ignorant. 
If you possest the right knowledge, you would be 
lucky because you were turning your knowledge 
to account. 

Ask yourself now, " Am I lucky! Am I trying 
to be lucky? Am I determined to be lucky? " 
You are the only person who can decide; and if 
you want to be lucky you must train your mind to 
obey your will, and you must rule it with wisdom, 
courage, and foresight. 

Suppose you have trained your mind in an ele- 
mentary way by memorizing prose and poetry. In 
what manner are you exercising it and keeping it 
fit? You must know that the mind will do a lot 
of work for you without any effort on your part 
if you train it carefully. For instance, the mind 
works while you sleep. Not only is this shown by 
our dreams, but there are countless instances where 
men have gone to bed worried and perplexed over 
some problem, and on waking in the morning have 
found the solution in their minds. 

Note the gradual growth of the reasoning powers. 
The child first of all absorbs into its mind the 
statements of its mother. By any by it notices 
things and asks questions. That marks the first 
development of the reasoning powers. As we grow 
older we must continue to ask ourselves these ques- 



180 Personal Power 

tions, and we must seek until we find the right 
answers. It is true of business life that the more 
people a man knows in his particular sphere of 
activity the more successful he is likely to be. In 
our mental lives the more information we have at 
command the more use we can make of our facul- 
ties. When we reason we must reason upon 
proved facts. Obviously, if we argue from incor- 
rect facts our conclusions will be incorrect. If we 
read carefully and choose our books well, we shall 
store our minds with valuable information which 
will never be wasted and will serve us faithfully 
some time or other. 

Our intellects touch life at more than one point. 
There is an aristocracy of brains. Clever people in 
society or in business will not tolerate mediocrity. 
If you would succeed in life you must develop your 
talents. 

The intellect serves us in ordinary affairs more 
through conversation and writing than in any other 
way. With the development of the social grace of 
conversation we need not concern ourselves here. 
The ability to write well, however, is a matter that 
vitally concerns each one of us. How often one 
hears such a saying as : " When I wrote that, I 

meant you to understand " Clear writing is 

not so easy as it looks. You must bear in mind al- 
ways the impression your words will convey to the 



How to get Good Luck 181 

person reading them, not the impression yon think 
they may convey. In the course of reading good 
literature the writer's meaning seems so clear that 
one feels no other words could be used. 

The way to train yourself to write clearly and 
to acquire a good literary style is to study good 
authors. A good system of study is as follows: 
Select any passage you like, read it carefully, and 
then write down what the passage was about, as 
nearly as possible in the author's own words. 
When you compare the two you will notice how 
crude your own expressions are, and you will be 
able to understand the beauties of the author's 
style. As time goes on, and you repeat this exer- 
cise, you will find that not only does your memory 
improve, but your style will improve also. It is a 
mental exercise of the highest possible value for 
teaching clear writing and the proper study of 
style. 

You want ideas in order to be able to write well. 
You must be able to dig out from the recesses of 
your mind all the information that will illuminate 
the subject you are writing about. Here, again, 
some mental exercises will be useful. Take any 
good book of essays (you cannot do better than 
choose Emerson) and select one of the subjects that 
appeals to you. Suppose it is " Self-Beliance." 
Write down all the qualities and advantages of this 



182 Personal Power 

virtue that occur to you, and then read the essay 
and note carefully how the author expands the 
subject. You will be able to appreciate all the 
things he notices about self-reliance, and you will 
learn how to reason about such a subject yourself. 

A systematic series of mental exercises like these 
will strengthen your mind wonderfully, and will 
probably astonish you. If you persevere, you will 
observe one remarkable fact. As soon as you start 
theorizing about any subject all sorts of ideas and 
thoughts about it will crowd into your mind, and 
as you write your letters or essays your thoughts 
will flow of their own accord and come into your 
mind in their proper order. You will then under- 
stand how wonderfully your mind works on your 
behalf and helps you, and you will reap one of the 
rewards of carrying out the duty of developing the 
talents with which your Creator blest you. 

These exercises alone will teach you to think 
and reason clearly and to express yourself well in 
conversation or in writing. You will put yourself 
in the way of opportunities, and you will recognize 
them when they come. More than that, you will 
know how to use them, and in using them you will 
be successful. In others words, you will be lucky. 

Napoleon said that every soldier carried a field- 
marshal's baton in his knapsack. He instilled into 
the minds of his troops the fact that the highest 



How to get Good Luck 183 

commands were open to them; indeed, many of 
his marshals did rise from the ranks. By inspir- 
ing this confident ambition, Napoleon increased the 
efficiency of his army. Good luck, then, is merely 
a question of a right mental attitude. Metaphori- 
cally speaking, we all have field-marshals' batons 
in our knapsacks. We are embryo Nelsons, Pitts, 
Marlboroughs, or whatever character stands as the 
perfect type of our legitimate ambitions. The office 
boy is an embryo employer; the curate is an em- 
bryo archbishop. In our home life each one of us is 
capable of becoming the one to whom the other 
members of the family turn for help and encourage- 
ment. 

Blessed is the man who knows what his special 
genius is. He has but to work faithfully to develop 
that genius, and he will get such * ' good luck ' ' that 
nothing can hold him back from the success he is 
striving after. The boy with a passion for draw- 
ing, who draws really well and has the genius for 
art, will become a great artist because he must 
draw, and nothing can hold him back from it. Put 
him in a bank, and he will draw in his spare time 
until his work gets known and he can afford to 
devote all his energies to art. 

The average man or woman has no such out- 
standing genius, and often enough it is very difficult 
for a person to know how to cultivate the mental 



184 Personal Power 

powers so as to produce the most practical benefits 
in everyday life. It is a well-ascertained fact that 
we do best those things which we like the best. An 
artist loves his art above all things, and he can draw 
better than he can write. A musician plays or sings 
better than he talks. These gifts are obvious ; but 
what is to guide a ledger clerk or a wife 1 How are 
people whose work is of a general nature to know 
what talents they have which they can develop to 
advantage, even in their prosaic labors? Some 
ledger clerks are far superior to others. Their 
work is neater, they do more work in perhaps half 
the time than their fellow clerks. They are prompt 
and businesslike, and perhaps when their work is 
done they have still time to ask for more. Such 
men are ' ' lucky. ' ' They rise to managerial posi- 
tions. They get wider opportunities for learning 
business, and as they learn so they discover that 
they possess aptitute for special tasks of which 
they were quite ignorant. The wife who takes a 
pride in her home organizes her work systemati- 
cally. She keeps down her household expenses. She 
devises schemes for entertaining her family, and 
she finds she can afford to entertain. As her social 
life increases she discovers that she has talents for 
entertaining people, and she learns how to commu- 
nicate her experience and aptitude to her family. 
Life progresses in cricles. We are bound, first 



How to get Good Luck 185 

of all, by the family circle, and we learn from the 
members of our household. Then we enlarge our 
circles by going out into the world. We meet more 
people, and we learn from them. Every new task 
we take up is the center of a new circle of knowl- 
edge. Every fresh friend we make is a center of 
yet another circle of experience. If we like peo- 
ple, we assimilate their habits of thought, and we 
readily learn from them. If we like a special kind 
of work we study it, and we make rapid progress in 
it. The elementary rule for discovering hidden 
talent is to cultivate the habit of liking everything 
that we have to do. The flavor of olives is quite an 
acquired taste with some people, so is the flavor 
of tomatoes with others. When the taste for such 
things is once acquired one finds it difficult to be- 
lieve that there was a time when the flavor was not 
appreciated. Clearly, the cultivation of likes and 
dislikes is a matter of mental effort. We are told 
that if we persevere with eating olives we shall 
soon like them. We get the idea so firmly in our 
minds that we have only to keep on eating them 
to appreciate the flavor, that we persevere, and 
quickly discover that we do really like them. Are 
you a clerk, sir, engaged upon some uncongenial 
work? I tell you emphatically, positively, that you 
like it. Other people like bookkeeping, and so do 
you. Let me tell you how to get to like your work 



186 Personal Power 

within a month. When you get up to-morrow morn- 
ing pretend to yourself that you are looking for- 
ward to your day's work. Determine to do it 
quickly and better than you have ever done it be- 
fore. Say to yourself that you are going to show 
yourself how well that work can be done, how you 
can file away your invoices and receipts so that you 
can put your hand on any one of them when the 
manager asks for it, quicker than anyone else in the 
office. If you find yourself confronted with any 
task that appears distasteful, just tell your brain 
decisively that you like it, that it is just the work 
that gives you pleasure, and you will be surprized 
to find that you are getting to delight in your work 
which you thought so unpleasant. 

Make yourself look forward to your work. 
Tell yourself (whenever you are alone with your 
thoughts) that you like your occupation, and your 
brain will quickly take your cue. It will act auto- 
matically, and you will find that your work really 
is a delight to you. 

Do you know why this is so? It is not a quack 
cure for your dislikes, but a scientific one. The 
name for it is " auto-suggestion, ' ' and what you do 
is to hypnotize yourself. The hypnotist puts his 
" subject " under control. He gives him a glass of 
water and tells him it is coffee. The " subject " 
drinks it with every sign of relish. He gives him 



How to get Good Luck 187 

another glass of water, and says it is mustard and 
water. The " subject " drinks it with disgust and 
very likely it makes him sick. You are your own 
hypnotist. Tell your brain you do not like any par- 
ticular task, and it will appear disagreeable to you. 
Affirm emphatically that you do like it, and your 
brain will receive your suggestion with pleasure. 

It is astonishing how very easy it is to acquire 
such a habit of mind. It comes readily from the 
very outset, and grows in strength until you exer- 
cise it unconsciously. Walking along the Thames 
Embankment in London one morning, I saw two 
small boys standing at a drinking trough. The 
water was frozen over, but the ice was broken. The 
two boys were dipping their hands in and were 
engaged in breaking off lumps of ice, which they 
were throwing on the roadway. I could not help 
thinking that if I, myself, had found it necessary to 
break off the ice and throw it away, I should have 
regarded the task as a hardship; so would those 
boys if they had been in like case. The difference 
was that they had persuaded themselves that they 
liked doing it, and they were enjoying themselves. 
It is so with everything we do. We can persuade 
ourselves that we enjoy it or not, as we please. 
Too often we choose to think our work uncongenial, 
and it irks us. By just changing over our mental 






188 Personal Power 

attitude we shall find that we really like the work 
that used to be distasteful. 

We find that by getting all the interest we can 
out of our work we enjoy it, and we do it better. 
As we progress we learn that we have unsuspected 
aptitudes for tasks that used to seem beyond us. 
We discover new talents through a gradual system 
of enlarging the field of our labors. If you will 
but take a pleasure in your work, and do every 
task as perfectly as your ability will allow, your 
way of life will open out to you. So long as you do 
your work grudgingly, so long you will keep your 
mind within narrow limits. You have only to ad- 
just your mental taste, and you will discover all 
sorts of interests and opportunities in the dullest 
routine work. 

Ennoble your work in your thought, and you 
will make it noble. The man who does his work 
grandly finds that the path of progress opens be- 
fore him, and realizes in his career that for him 
who performs his allotted task with all his might, 
life is full of unsuspected possibilities, and that 
good fortune waits on every step. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE POWER OF THE WRITTEN WORD 

" Beading maTceth a full man; conference a ready man; and 
writing an exact man." Bacon. 

LETTEK-writing used to be one of the polite 
arts. Statesmen wrote letters, travelers 
wrote them, lovers wrote them, and friends wrote 
them. To-day the two broad classifications of 
letters which are brought prominently before the 
public are those one reads in the newspapers on 
such subjects as " Does Love Last? " and those 
read in breach-of-prpomise actions, which cause in- 
finite amusement. Interest is essential in letters, 
and wit and humor of the right sort are to be de- 
sired, but the kinds of letters referred to above 
prove that the art of correspondence as a graceful 
accomplishment is well-nigh dead, and cries aloud 
for resuscitation. The letters that pass to and fro 
in private life are generally no better than those 
which flaunt their worthlessness in the public press. 
The idea seems to be that writing a letter is a task 
that is a disagreeable necessity to be got over as 
soon as possible. People seem to think that the 

189 



190 Personal Power 

baldest statements are good enough when writing 
to relations or friends. If they do not think so, they 
act as if they do, and the result is that it is the ex- 
ception rather than the rule to come across a really 
well-written letter. 

Have you ever thought that whenever you write 
a sentence or a thought of your own you impress 
it vividly on your own mind and on the mind of the 
recipient? People who know, always write down a 
thing they particularly want to think out. For 
instance, if I ask you : ' ' What are the chief essen- 
tials in a good letter? " you will not be able to 
make an adequate reply, even to yourself, unless 
you write down your various ideas, and, by so do- 
ing, enable yourself to give a complete answer and 
fix these essentials in your mind. 

It is a social crime to be uninteresting in a letter. 
It suggests that anything will do for the person to 
whom you are writing. If you simply write a bald, 
uninteresting letter, you are allowing your mind to 
become lazy. As soon as you start thinking of the 
interesting, bright, and amusing things you can say, 
you exercise your mind and keep it active, and 
develop your powers of observation, of optimism, 
and, above all, of humor, which is the saving grace 
of life, the sunshine that dispels the gloom of many 
a trying hour. 

Just think for a moment of some of the letters 



The Power of the Written Word 191 

you have received lately. Have any of them left 
an impression on your mind because of their inter- 
est or because they were really well written ? You 
will find that you get your best letters from your 
best friends. They do their utmost to tell you in- 
teresting things, because they know you will appre- 
ciate them, and because they want to be interesting 
to you. You see from this that when you write in- 
terestingly to anybody you pay them a compliment, 
while you slight them if you write only indifferently 
well. Every time you write a good letter to a per- 
son, you create in his or her mind an unconscious 
impression that you think sufficiently of their 
opinion and culture to send them something worth 
reading, that you think they are worth taking 
trouble about. It is a form of flattery that is very 
sweet and laudable. 

A word here about corresponding with your own 
family. It is common for brothers and sisters when 
writing to each other to adopt a very brief and cur- 
sory style. Do you not think the people you pass 
your life with are those you ought to cultivate the 
most? It is far more important that they should 
like you, and wish to make you happy, than that 
you should be highly popular with people you meet 
socially at brief intervals. Moreover, the act of 
writing a slovenly letter to anybody is an insult to 
your own mind. It is as if you said to your brain : 



192 Personal Power 

" The easiest thing for you to create is a common- 
place letter. A really good letter is rather a strain 
for you. ' ' Do not treat your mind like that, or it 
will revenge itself by creating only commonplace 
thoughts, whereas if you give it every opportunity 
of being original, it will create original ideas just 
as easily as mediocre ones, and will endow you with 
a decided and gifted personality. 

Here is an example, taken from the excellent vol- 
umes of his published letters, showing how Robert 
Louis Stevenson wrote to his father at the age of 
sixteen : — 

" Respected Paternal Relative, — 

" I write to make a request of the most moderate na- 
ture. Every year I have cost you an enormous — nay, ele- 
phantine — sum of money for drugs and physicians' fees, and 
the most expensive time of the twelve months was March. 

" But this year the biting Oriental blasts, the howling 
tempests, and the general ailments of the human race have 
been successfully braved by yours truly. 

"Does not this deserve remuneration? I appeal to your 
charity, I appeal to your generosity, I appeal to your 
justice, I appeal to your accounts, I appeal, in fine, to your 
purse. 

" My sense of generosity forbids the receipt of more — my 
sense of justice forbids the receipt of less — than half-a- 
crown. Greeting from, Sir, 

" Your most affectionate and needy Son, 

" R. Stevenson." 

Do not say to yourself: " I am quite an ordi- 



The Power of the Written Word 193 

nary person and cannot be expected to write like 
that." You can write letters which will give the 
greatest pleasure to your friends, and you need not 
be astonished if you find you can write a much finer 
letter than you thought possible. What should 
cause you astonishment (if such a thing were pos- 
sible) would be to find that you were not writing 
well after you had made up your mind to compose 
letters worth reading. 

Some people live in history because of the letters 
they wrote and for no other reason. Such a person 
was Dorothy Osborne, whose letters to her future 
husband, Sir William Temple, were purchased by 
the trustees of the British Museum. These letters, 
written in the seventeenth century, are a standing 
reproach to the wishy-washy love-letters of the 
present day, and are a good example of what can 
be done by the non-literary person who possesses a 
keen, observant mind and a cultured wit. The fol- 
lowing is taken quite at random, to serve as a gen- 
eral example of a good letter : — 

" Sir,-— 

" If there were anything in my letter that pleased 
you I am extremely glad on't, 'twas all due to you, and made 
it but an equal return for the satisfaction yours gave me. 
And whatsoever you may believe, I shall never repent the 
good opinion I have with so much reason taken up. But I 
forget myself; I meant to chide, and I think this is nothing 
toward it. Is it possible you came so near me as Bed- 



194 Personal Power 

ford and would not see me? Seriously, I should not have 
believed it from another; would your horse had lost all his 
legs instead of a hoof, that he might not have been able 
to carry you further, and you, something that you valued 
extremely, and could not hope to find anywhere but at Chick- 
sands. I could wish you a thousand little mischances, I am 
so angry with you; for my life I could not imagine how I 
had lost you, or why you should call that a silence of six or 
eight weeks which you intended so much longer. And when 
I had wearied myself with thinking of all the unpleasing 
accidents that might cause it, I at length sat down with a 
resolution to choose the best to believe, which was, that at 
the end of one journey, you had begun another (which I had 
heard you say you intended), and that your haste, or some- 
thing else, had hindered you from letting me know it. 

" In this ignorance your letter from Breda found me, 
which (by the way) Sir Thomas never saw. 'Tis true I told 
him I had a letter from you, one day that he extremely la- 
mented he knew not what was become of you, and fell into so 
earnest commendations of you that I cannot expect less from 
him, who have the honor to be his kinswoman. 

" But to leave him to his Mistress (who perhaps has 
spoiled his memory), let me assure you that I was never so 
in love with an old man in my life, as I was with Mr. Met- 
calf for sending me that letter (tho there is one not far 
off that says he will have me when his wife dies!). I writ 
so kindly to him the next post, and he that would not be in 
my debt, sends me word again that you were coming over 3 
but yours kept me from believing that, and made me think 
you in Italy when you were in England, tho I was not 

displeased to find myself deceived. 

" But for God's sake let me ask you what you have done 
all this while you have been away; what you met with in 
Holland that could keep you there so long; why you went no 
further; and why I was not to know you went so far? You 



The Power of the Written Word 195 

may do well to satisfy me in all these. I shall so persecute 
you with questions else, when I see you, that you will be glad 
to go thither again to avoid me; tho when that will be I 
cannot certainly say, for my Father has so small a propor- 
tion of health left him since my Mother's death, that I am in 
continual fear of him, and dare not often make use of the 
leave he gives me to be from home, lest he should at some 
time want such little services as I am able to render him. 
Yet I think to be at London at the next term, and am sure I 
shall desire it because you are there. Sir, 

" Your Humble Servant." 

You will notice the strong features of this letter, 
particularly the clever way in which the writer 
gives a connected interest to the correspondence 
by suggesting things she will like to hear. Other 
good features you can discover for yourself. You 
need not bother to read published letters for 
the sake of improving your own correspondence, 
though most volumes of this kind are very interest- 
ing. Simply keep in mind the rules of good-letter- 
writing, and determine that you will write nothing 
slipshod or uninteresting. In a way, every letter 
you write is for publication, because the person 
you write to is a sort of public. Be careful not to 
be artificial. Just be natural and as bright and in- 
teresting as you can. Take care of the interest and 
the phraseology, and the literary value of the let- 
ters will take care of itself. 

Volumes have been written about the art of writ- 



196 Personal Power 

ing business letters, but in general the broad prin- 
ciples can be set down in a short space. Business 
letters are meant to help business, and every such 
communication should be written with this end in 
view. 

The essential requirements of a business let- 
ter are brevity, clarity, and force. Sometimes you 
must sacrifice brevity. It is not always possible 
to write a short note (tho it is always desir- 
able), but it is generally possible to write a much 
shorter letter than is actually sent. Business men 
go to business for one thing and for one thing only, 
and that is to make money. Any letter you write 
to a business man affects his pocket. If you are 
helping him to make money, well and good : you are 
his friend. If, however, your letter is long and the 
reading of it takes up time that could be turned to 
profitable account, you are annoying him. Busi- 
ness men like short letters, and they usually bring 
back short replies, which enable you to save your 
time also. 

It stands to reason that if you dictate short let- 
ters you save your typist's time as well as your 
own, so that she can write more letters and enable 
you to cover a wider ground, while she saves you 
the necessity of employing another stenographer. 
Look at it as you may, all the arguments are in 
favor of short letters and are against long ones. 



The Power of the Written Word 197 

Whatever you do, however, you must never sacri- 
fice clearness for the purpose of making your 
letters short. A letter-writer has always to be 
careful that his meaning is obvious to his reader. 
Sometimes a letter conveys quite a different sug- 
gestion from the one intended by the writer, and 
it is important to see that there are no ambiguous 
phrases which will confuse the issue and make the 
letter unintelligible. 

The third requirement in a letter is force. Never 
send out a colorless letter. Your correspondence 
should express your individuality, and if you have 
a strong personality it should be reflected in your 
letters. Moreover, the habit of writing good letters 
will have its effect upon your mind, strengthening 
it by the very resolution to do nothing which shall 
not worthily represent your character. 

A letter is the next best thing to a personal talk. 
Many businesses have been built up to vast pro- 
portions by the use of letters alone. Thousands 
of pounds' worth of goods are sold every year by 
certain firms who never see their customers, purely 
by the force of the written word. This shows how 
perfect the art of letter-writing has become, and 
will suggest to you that if you can thus influence 
people whom you never see, your influence can be 
made to act much stronger upon those whom you 
know. 



198 Personal Power 

A business letter is sent out for one of two pur- 
poses : either to get something you want, or to give 
your correspondent some information which he is in 
need of. You can even make the latter kind of letter 
forceful, by conveying a suggestion that the reader 
should do something you want him to do. If you 
are selling goods, for instance, and send a man a 
list of new prices, you can give a salable quality 
to your letter by suggesting at the end that he will 
find it advisable to order at once and turn the bar- 
gain to advantage. Such a suggestion conveys the 
idea that the prices are low and that the goods will 
sell readily, and the letter is thus made more valu- 
able than it would be if it contained merely a bald 
statement of prices. 

You want to put positive force into your letters 
by creating a suggestion in your reader 's mind. A 
letter which only conveys a bald statement, such as 
a list of prices, is a negative letter, because of it- 
self it does not impel the reader to act upon any 
idea which you put into his head. As soon as you 
say, " Write to us and let us know your require- 
ments, so that we can deliver at once," you start 
the reader 's brain working along the lines you wish 
it to take. Do not say, " We think you will wish 
to order at once. " That is weak. Say, " Write to 
us, ' ' and put the notion into his head as forcibly as 
you can. Always look for the opportunity of help- 



The Power of the Written Word 199 

ing your reader to make up his mind like this, and 
you will reap the fullest value from your corre- 
spondence. 

Apart from forcefulness, which reveals a strong 
individuality, and accuracy, which shows character, 
you want your letters to oil the wheels of business. 
A kind letter will turn away wrath just as surely 
as will a soft answer by word of mouth; but, in 
addition to this, the continual revelation of a kindly 
interest will promote good relations by making 
your correspondents feel that you are studying 
them and wish them well. Many a subtle touch can 
be introduced into letters, which will create such a 
cordial impression that the readers will find plea- 
sure in doing business with you. 

Suppose a man writes and orders goods from a 
particular sample. It is quite easy to write back, 
" Many thanks for your order, etc.," but it is much 
better to say, " I am glad to get your hind letter 
ordering, etc." In the one case you send a bald 
acknowledgment; in the other you let him know 
that you are glad because you appreciate his 
kindness. Such pleasant words create a pleasant 
feeling, which transforms business from dry-as-dust 
commerce into kindly human intercourse, which is 
beneficial and pleasant to both parties. Never miss 
a chance of adding these brief but courteous per- 
sonal touches to your letter. They promote busi- 



200 Personal Power 

ness by showing your interest in your correspon- 
dent. 

One word more on the art of writing business 
letters. Never write an angry letter. When you 
get a letter that impels you to sit down and write 
a sarcastic or bitter reply, by all means do so if it 
will relieve your feelings, but don't send it. Wait 
until the next morning, and then write such a letter 
as you yourself would appreciate. Place yourself 
always in the mind of your reader. Appreciate his 
motives in writing to you, and act accordingly. If 
he is angry you must remove the cause of his anger, 
whether it is just or unjust; but you must do it 
frankly and with cordiality. Own up if you are 
wrong, and rectify your mistakes, but always be 
friendly and give your angry correspondent the 
opportunity of establishing cordial relations once 
more by going the whole way to meet him. 

Courtesy is cheap, and it always pays. More 
flies are caught with honey than with vinegar. You 
are in business to get business, and the more you 
can make people like you and trust you, the more 
business you can get. For the cultivation of cor- 
dial relations which create profitable transactions, 
the ability to write good letters is an indispensable 
part of a business man's equipment. You cannot 
climb high in commerce until you become a profi- 
cient letter-writer. If you go a little farther and 



The Power of the Written Word 201 

make yourself more than usually skilful, which is 
quite easy and only calls for a little extra thought, 
you will be invaluable to your employers, who will 
not fail to recognize the value of your efforts. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE HABIT OF POWER 

" In the smallest and greatest things a man should Jcnoto and 
bear in mind his own measure." Juvenal. 

A JUST appreciation of your gifts is necessary 
to their fullest development. It is a con- 
spicuous attribute of clever people that they can 
recognize their own deficiencies. You never met a 
dunderhead who did not think he had his full share 
of brain. Most mediocrities are mediocrities be- 
cause they are thoroughly well satisfied with them- 
selves. If they would only shake themselves out 
of their self-complacency, and find out how little 
use they are making of the abilities they do possess, 
they would soon take a place in the world that 
would be more in keeping with the fictitious value 
they set upon themselves. 

You cannot improve yourself until you have 
found out what needs improving. Let me just put 
down the common attributes of personal power, so 
that you can ask yourself which you are deficient 

202 



The Habit of Power 203 

in and which you possess in good measure. You 
will then be in a position to make plans for using 
the gifts which will help you, as well as for de- 
veloping those which you will need if you are to 
force yourself forward. Here they are, not neces- 
sarily in their order of importance to you, but just 
a list of those qualities which you must develop to 
be sure you realize your possession of the gift of 
power : — 

(1) A special talent, the use of which gives you 

pleasure. 

(2) A knowledge of such business subjects as 

will fit you for advancement. 

(3) The ability to talk well. 

(4) The ability to write a good letter. 

(5) A good memory. 

These are purely mental qualities which make for 
success. Now let us take the physical qualities 
which are essential. 

(1) Good health, which is a matter of right 

living, avoidance of self-indulgence, and 
a proper amount of exercise. 

(2) Orderliness of habits and punctuality. 

(3) Good taste in dress. 

(4) A quiet, sympathetic voice, and distinct- 

ness of speech. 



204 Personal Power 

Finally, we come to moral qualities which form 
the character and are equally important : — 

(1) Ambition to succeed in something, by 

swhich I mean an aim in life to do some- 
thing to perfection. 

(2) Determination to achieve that ambition 

and to do something towards attaining 
it every day, which is summed up in the 
word " perseverance." 

(3) Culture, which enables you to appreciate 

perfection in all that you do, say, or 
think. 

(4) An appreciation of the difficulties of 

others, which will make you tactful. 

There are additional moral qualities, such as 
sympathy and generosity, which are dealt with 
elsewhere, but in general these are all you need to 
ask yourself about at the moment. 

Start out on an investigation like this for 
the sole purpose of developing your strength. You 
want to know what your weaknesses are, so that 
you can strengthen them. Most men who are con- 
scious of weaknesses of some kind or other use the 
knowledge to avoid work which would call their de- 
ficiencies into play. They lack self-confidence be- 
cause they keep their weaknesses ever before their 



The Habit of Power 205 

eyes. The wise man relies on his strength. He 
takes his stand upon what he can do, and when he 
is called upon to do something which will make him 
use one of his weak faculties, he makes up his mind 
to do the best he can, while he draws upon his 
strong qualities as much as possible. The golden 
rule, therefore, is to keep your strong qualities in 
front of your eyes, so to speak, and ignore your 
weak ones. Do not pander to these latter. Treat 
them as if they were sources of strength, too. That 
is what Shakespeare means when he says, " As- 
sume a virtue if you have it not. ' ' Every now and 
then you will ask yourself how your weak faculties 
are improving, and if you have done your best to 
develop your mind and character; and you will 
have the satisfaction of noting an extraordinary 
development of strength which you never dreamed 
of. 

The men who fail are those who fear to under- 
take responsibility because they are afraid of their 
weaknesses. When you are asked to do something 
which seems hard, it is the greatest compliment 
anybody can possibly pay you. It is as if they 
should say, " I know you are the best man I can 
come to for this." Would not someone else be 
asked to do it if it were thought he could do it bet- 
ter? Of course he would. And that is the way to 
look at the matter. 



206 Personal Power 

The continual belief that your mind is capable 
of solving all the difficulties which may confront it 
becomes a sort of instinct which prompts a man to 
face cheerfully all the problems of life. After all, 
the troubles and anxieties which we encounter are 
of the greatest benefit. They increase our power 
because they call forth all the finest faculties of the 
mind, and when we have surmounted them we find 
ourselves in the clear atmosphere beyond the strug- 
gling mass of incompetents who fear to undertake 
responsibility. There comes a time when the 
strong man welcomes difficulties because of the joy 
of conquest. You have only to apply your common 
sense to your daily problems, and you will solve 
them. The more you have to solve, the stronger 
your mind will become, and the easier your work 
will appear to you. 

You are entitled to believe that when some task 
confronts you to which your experience offers no 
guide, the faculties of your mind will automatically 
rally to your assistance. If you will only have the 
courage to act on this assumption, you will soon dis- 
cover the truth of the assertion. Your brain is like 
a horse in one respect. The horse instinctively 
knows the feelings of its rider. When the rider is 
timid the horse becomes timid also, while a coura- 
geous rider gives courage to his steed. Similarly, a 
hesitating man, by a process of self-suggestion, so 



The Habit of Power 207 

impresses his mind with timidity that his brain 
cannot give him encouragement and help. Only 
assume the habit of power, and your mind will 
respond readily to second you in carrying your 
work to a triumphant conclusion. 

The habit of power, which assumes that you are 
capable of performing any work entrusted to you, 
has many advantages which operate together to 
make a man successful. As time goes on, the mind 
becomes so strengthened, so used to this idea of 
power, that difficulties shrink before it. How often 
the impossible task loses most of its difficulties when 
it is attacked with determination. The weak man 
sees only difficulties in the problems of his daily 
life. Everything looks so hard and unassailable 
that he fears to undertake anything which is out- 
side the usual simple routine. Very different is the 
attitude of the strong mind. It ignores the diffi- 
culties and seizes on the weaknesses of a problem, 
and from that point of view makes the attack. 

A safe rule to adopt is, " Take the line of least 
resistance, ' ' and another is, ' ' Never underrate the 
strength of your opponent." These two laws (for 
they are laws) should be taken together because 
they go together in the guide-book of life. Most 
men separate them and give them a false meaning. 
To such individuals, taking the line of least resis- 
tance means ignoring unpleasant obstacles to an 



208 Personal Power 

easy mind and body. Anything that promises 
worry or mental strain or undue physical effort is 
avoided, while the difficulties of a task or the ca- 
pacity of a competitor are so magnified that oppo- 
sition appears to be futile. 

The right mental attitude to adopt is this : How- 
ever strong my competitor may be, he has some 
weakness somewhere which I can find, and when I 
find it I shall overcome his opposition. That is 
the application of the first law, and when it is so 
applied, the opposition confronting you loses its 
appearance of bristling strength and presents a 
series of vulnerable parts to your keen and prac- 
tised eye. Many a fortress used to be considered 
impregnable, but modern science and knowledge 
has shown that human skill cannot build a fort that 
is absolutely secure from attack. Somewhere, very 
likely, there is a position from which it can be bom- 
barded, and this is its source of weakness. The 
position is strongly fortified, but the clever general 
attacks its weakest part, and concentrates all his 
force upon that, because when once he has subdued 
it the rest is comparatively easy. } 

Another illustration from warfare has a distinct 
bearing upon this reasoning. The idea of a fortress 
is not that it shall be absolutely impregnable, for 
that is impossible, but that it shall delay the enemy 
as long as may be. Opposition in everything is like 



The Habit of Power 209 

that. It delays your conquest, but it does not make 
it impossible. There is a weakness somewhere 
which will give you the opening you want. Do not 
waste your time and strength in attacking the 
strong part of your opposition, but take the line of 
least resistance, and attack that vigorously, until 
you can make it the stepping-off ground to the next 
weakest part. 

Of all the problems that can confront you, how- 
ever unfamiliar they may seem at first glance, and 
however much they seem to baffle your experience, 
if you will only look you will find about them some 
familiar features which do respond to your experi- 
ence. The habit of power assumes that, once you 
have discovered such points, your experience, aided 
by your common sense, will enable you to use them 
as landmarks to guide you over the ground with 
which you are not familiar. 

I can give you a broad example which is the re- 
sult of my own experience. When I was writing ad- 
vertisements for a living, it fell to my lot to devise 
a publicity scheme for a new infant food. I knew 
nothing about infant foods or the special trade con- 
ditions which governed their marketing. But I did 
know the trade conditions operating in the cases of 
other commodities. I knew the way to write adver- 
tisements to interest the public, and I knew how to 
create a market for such goods. Here were the 



210 Personal Power 

broad principles of publicity with which I was con- 
versant, and there was a new commodity which I 
knew nothing about. First of all, I evolved a plan 
of campaign which would interest the public, be- 
cause that I knew I could do. Then I interviewed 
the manufacturer, and told him how I had secured 
the help of the retail trade in other cases, and he 
gave me the information I wanted to complete my 
knowledge in regard to his own proposition. I was 
able then to reconstruct my whole campaign, be- 
cause I had all the necessary facts before me. I was 
able to provide the incomplete groundwork from my 
past experience, and my common sense told me that 
the manufacturer could complete the foundations. 
It all became simple when I adopted the safe prac- 
tise of arguing from the known to the unknown. 
Start from the safe ground of your experience, 
guide yourself by the landmarks which that ex- 
perience provides, and by using your common sense 
you will find that the road which looked so difficult 
to travel is not so hard when you progress along it 
by careful stages. 

The habit of mind which cheerfully embarks 
upon new problems and tasks because of a sure 
belief that they can be successfully solved and 
accomplished by the simple process of arguing 
from what you do know to what is unfamiliar, soon 
produces the outward impression of power. The 



The Habit of Power 211 

man who is willing to undertake responsibility 
bears the impress of his self-confidence unmistak- 
ably upon him. He shows by a score of the clearest 
signs that he is ready to be trusted, and what is 
more, his brain informs him by a sort of instinct 
that his mental powers can be trusted also. People 
like men who know their own power. They will 
forgive the mistakes which must occur, provided, 
as a big employer once said to me, they do not 
occur a second time. 

If you have been timid in the past, for goodness' 
sake take your courage in both hands and go out 
to make full use of your brain-power. Every man 
who has risen has had his despairing moments, 
and every man as he rises must have his worries. 
Worries are the barometer of success. When you 
have none, you are shown to be in a state of drift. 
When you have a lot, you are moving in the un- 
charted waters which will carry you to success 
if you guide yourself by your common sense. 
Worries must come to you if you are doing work 
that is worth while, but they are not sent to over- 
whelm you. They are not irritants to make life 
unbearable, but spurs to drive you onward. Treat 
them as such. Make up your mind to accept them 
as troubles which you yourself can dissipate, in- 
stead of as troubles that will hold you back and 
make you fail. They will soon leave you, and they 



212 Personal Power 

will enable you to enjoy to the full the sense of 
achievement which reveals to you, with the con- 
quering of every anxiety, the sense of power which 
you have called forth from the depths of your be- 
ing to be a mighty force under your own control. 
Power dwells within you. Call it into life, and 
use it to make yourself strong. You have all your 
talents and abilities ready and waiting. However 
much you develop them, they might just as well be 
non-existent if you do not use them. They are 
meant for use, but only you can utilize them. By 
assuming the habit of power you put yourself in 
the way of such tasks as will call them all into 
action, and the more you can call upon them the 
stronger they will grow and the greater will be 
your success in whatever undertakings you may 
embark upon. Remember, you have the power, but 
you must use it as a habit, and not as an occasional 
calling forth of effort. So you will go trium- 
phantly from strength to strength, and the impossi- 
bilities of to-day will become the easy tasks of to- 
morrow. 



PART ill 
Pleasures of Power 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE JOY OF LABOR 
" The gods sell us all good things for hard work." — Epichaemtjs. 

WHEN a man becomes conscious of his talents, 
and has begun to develop them, he begins 
to discover the pleasure of using them. To the 
man who is mentally active, everything in life is 
interesting. He derives pleasure from the sight of 
the countryside, because he can see its wonders 
as well as its beauties. All the world is full of 
marvels to him, and when he walks abroad it is as 
if he walked with Grod and shared in the joys of 
all creation. Suppose for one moment that the 
Omnipotent Intelligence had been mentally lazy: 
this world of ours would still be a chaotic mass, 
devoid of life and matter. Do you not suppose 
that the Creator rejoiced when He saw the many 
wonders which His effort called into being! Sup- 
pose, again, that He grew tired. At once the world 
would lose its life and return to that condition of 
confusion which characterized it before the Crea- 
tion. 
We ought to take nothing for granted. Every 

215 



216 Personal Power 

breath we draw, every child that is born, every 
flower that blows, should remind us that the Su- 
preme Force which governs our lives is ceaselessly 
caring for the work of His Mind. The sun that 
rises and sets, the restless sea, the cool breezes that 
bring us rain as well as fragrance and health, the 
marching of the stars at night, should all remind 
us that there is no obligation upon God to work 
for our benefit. All life and all beauty is a gift due 
to the unceasing work of the Great Mind, and the 
least man can do is to work also, and create in his 
turn. 

It is only when we work that we get more into 
harmony with the Infinite. It is only by labor that 
we can live and eat in the sense that unless we 
create we are not reaping the fulness of life, and 
are getting no real satisfaction out of it. 

In this way the work that we do is an indication 
of our state of mind. The man whose work is irk- 
some is a mental drone. A mind that is strong and 
active finds all labor pleasant, even if it is of the 
kind which is generally thought to be drudgery. I 
was much imprest on one occasion with the say- 
ing of a man whose work was most monotonous. 
He remarked that, altho he had to do the same 
thing over and over again, he prevented the labor 
becoming irksome by simply forcing himself to be- 
come interested in it: and he accomplished this by 



The Joy ot Labor 217 

striving to do the work more perfectly every time 
he was called upon to perform it again. Just as the 
man who uses his eyes can see beauty where an- 
other will only see ugliness, so the man with mental 
alertness will discover interest in uncongenial work. 
Unless you really are engrossed by what you do, 
you cannot concentrate your mind upon it, and con- 
sequently you cannot do it perfectly. By sitting 
down and complaining that your labors are drudg- 
ery, you cannot do good work, and instead of 
qualifying for a variation in the form of something 
better, you actually run the risk of keeping your- 
self in the state which you complain of. 

Put the joy of creation into everything you do. 
Let it be worthy of 3£>ur mind, and let it be done 
as perfectly as you c*Z\ do it. If your employers 
cannot use you to better advantage, fit yourself 
for more congenial work elsewhere. It is your 
own mult if you complain: the remedy is always 
in your own hand. Complaints are signs of weak- 
ness, and if you are in a chronic state of dissatis- 
faction words will avail nothing. Only by your 
own actions can you alter your own condition of 
life. If you are busy complaining when you ought 
to be busily acting, you are likely to complain until 
the end of the chapter. How can you enjoy your 
leisure if your mind is brooding over your griev 
ances? Instead of railing against circumstances, 



218 Personal Power 

you should take yourself to task because you allow 
your environment to worry you, and because you 
are not forming some plan which will eventually 
improve your state of mind as well as your state 
of work. 

When I first went to work, a long-headed busi- 
ness man said to me, ' ' You will find that you will 
have a lot of uncongenial work to do, but you must 
do it as cheerfully as the work you like doing." 
Every day's work brings to every man an amount 
of labor which is drudgery, if it is not worry. You 
can increase the drudgery or decrease it according 
to the frame of mind you adopt. Worry will drive 
you distracted if you will let it, but it will fly away 
if you face it with serenity. When you are tempted 
to sharp words, or feel worried, just pause a mo- 
ment and pull yourself together. It will only take 
you a minute to force yourself to breathe quietly 
and to put your mind into a restful state ; but it will 
make a wonderful difference to your mental out- 
look. The windows of the mind get blurred by 
worry and discontent. Spare a moment to drive 
these away and the windows will clear so that you 
can see the sun shining through the mists of doubt 
and disappointment. 

We hear a lot at times about the dignity of labor. 
The phrase is largely a contradiction in terms. 
There is no particular dignity about work. It is too 



The Joy of Labor 219 

strenuous, too exacting. What dignity it holds is 
in its result. When the mass of detail culminates 
in the achievement of the perfect plan, then you 
have the restfulness which is dignity, but not be- 
fore. But always there should be the joy of labor. 
Every detail of the work should be performed joy- 
fully and with enthusiasm, and then the completed 
task will give lasting pleasure, because it is made 
up of satisfaction and is built upon the sure founda- 
tion of perfection in all its parts. 

Where one man complains of competition, an- 
other man welcomes it because it gives a zest to 
business. If there is no struggle, there is little sat- 
isfaction. Only those who have conquered in the 
face of heavy odds know the real joy of work. 
When the outlook is dreary, then it is that the 
strong mind rejoices and moves cheerfully to the 
attack that the weaker man fears. Have you ever 
thought that when you get difficulties to solve, you 
are, to a large extent, meeting with less opposition 
in other directions? The number of men who can 
shoulder responsibility is limited. As soon, there- 
fore, as you attain to a responsible post which tries 
your nerve and resource and brings you worry, 
you have less to fear from opposition, because the 
mass of men do not compete with you. The higher 
you climb the fewer your competitors are and the 
more your real, worth is seen. Only keep your 



220 Personal Power 

mind exercised, trust your judgment, and use your 
experience, and you will have little to fear so long 
as you meet your daily difficulties in the glad spirit 
of the born conqueror. 

A successful writer remarked recently that he 
was able to produce a much greater amount of 
work by planning at the beginning of the day the 
developments he should make in his plot. He knew 
exactly what he wanted to do, and consequently he 
did it quicker. That was his system, and it suited 
him. Another writer once said to me, " When I 
want to make some money, I write down on a piece 
of paper something like this : ' Jack Jones was in 
a difficulty. ' Then I ask myself what difficulty Jack 
Jones was in, and proceed to build up a story." 
That was his system for doing remunerative work. 

You will notice in each case that the man made 
up his mind to do something profitable, and then 
set to work at once to carry it out. In some offices 
you will see a sign hung up : " What is the next 
thing? " This is a constant reminder to be doing 
something, and it is a great success-secret, because 
the more you do the more you become capable of 
doing. Some men are slow and sure, others are 
fast and uncertain. Both of these are comparative 
failures. Start with slow and sure, then struggle 
to become fast and sure, and you will outdistance 
your competitors. 



The Joy of Labor 221 

Do your daily work, and make some other form 
of work your hobby. The manager of one of our 
largest department stores has this motto hanging 
up over his desk: " There's no fun like work "; 
and he acts up to it. You may keep a ledger all day 
and write stories in the evening, or, if you cannot 
write, you can study art or literature or music. 
The change of work will rest you, and, after all, it 
is no greater hardship to read with an object than 
to read trashy novels; and you can buy the works 
of the greatest writers on every subject for a few 
pence. 

Be a worker. It is as easy to acquire the taste 
for work as the taste for olives ! Do not let your 
mind become slovenly. It will be lazy if you will 
let it, but it will be a profitable factor in your life 
if you make it industrious. You will need to exer- 
cise self-control and will-power to train your mind 
to enthusiasm, but the task will grow easy, until all 
work becomes a pleasure. The river that runs 
swiftly is clearer than the stagnant waters of a 
pool. Do not let your brain get muddy. Use it to 
its utmost capacity, and, while the days come on 
swift wings, they will bring hours of pleasure that 
the human drone can never know. 

Work well done spurs you on to better work and 
larger spheres of achievement. It opens up new 
fields of knowledge and reveals unsuspected sources 



222 Personal Power 

of power. While you sit down and do nothing all 
the wonders of the world are a sealed book to you. 
There are unexplored regions of your brain that 
only work can reveal to you. You have not the 
faintest idea what you can do, or what you can 
learn, until your work enables you to find it out. 
The world, with all its mysteries, all its resources 
and prizes, all its promises and achievements, lies 
before you. Others are finding them out and are 
rejoicing while they toil. The road lies open be- 
fore you: will you seize the opportunity, or leave 
the work and its reward to others! 

If you take the trouble to think about it, you will 
always notice one outstanding attribute of suc- 
cessful people. They work harder than those who 
achieve a moderate success. Into their day they 
crowd the labor of more than the day 's work of an 
ordinary man, and when you and I go home to our 
rest and our pleasures they continue toiling. The 
soldier commanding an army in the field works day 
and night ; so does the statesman, the busy barris- 
ter, the head of a great business. Their sole con- 
cern is to use the limited hours of a day for as much 
work as they can possibly crowd into it. 

Many a man who envies his more fortunate rivals 
grudges the work which success involves. If the 
great men of the world find it necessary to toil 
early and late to secure their positions, how vital 



The Joy of Labor 223 

must it be for the man who is struggling toward 
the achievement of his ambitions to work just as 
hard! These men do not work for money or for 
fame, for they have won both. They work for the 
love of the working, for the joy of the struggle, and 
the ecstasy of the final triumph ; and when they have 
conquered one thing the lust of power which pos- 
sesses them urges them on anew to fresh fields 
which are ready for conquest. 

Think of the men possest of all they need in 
life, going forth to the outer parts of the British 
Empire to work hard for their country. Think of 
the scientists pursuing their laborious investiga- 
tions, or, of the commercial magnates continuing 
to work harder than any clerk when they have 
earned fortunes and the right to enjoy luxurious 
leisure. These men are not called upon to under- 
take the daily drudgery and the thousand worries, 
perils, and anxieties which every day brings to 
them. Why, then, do they work ? The only answer 
is that there must be something in the very nature 
of labor which gives the worker such joy as he can 
obtain in no other way. It is the use of their 
mental powers, the act of creation, that enthrals 
them. 

Some men work for money and some for work's 
sake. Generally the former, when they have made 
their money, continue to work because they love it. 



224 Personal Power 

The man whose sole aim is to earn enough to satisfy 
his wants does very little more, and often, owing 
to his lack of foresight and an entire absence of 
ambition, he ends his days in poverty. Making 
money is laudable, but it is not the chief end of 
work. The man who toils in the fields and loves it 
is more successful than he who works in an office 
for money alone and loathes his routine. The more 
one thinks about the matter the plainer it is that 
the habit of loving work so much that even drudg- 
ery loses its burden is to be easily acquired by 
adopting the right mental attitude. Totting up 
figures and ruling up a ledger are, in themselves, 
dreary work. Any interest they may possess must 
be given to them by the worker. If he can do the 
work quickly and accurately and get quicker and 
more accurate, he derives a satisfaction from it that 
makes it even pleasant; and when his reward comes 
and he is given better-paid work, he begins to feel 
the benefit of that power which impelled him for- 
ward, though he never knew it. 

The most miserable people in the world are those 
who have nothing to do. Only a little better off are 
persons who are forced to work for their livelihood, 
and do it so grudgingly that life is merely a matter 
of dull routine. Happy is the man who loves his 
work, who rejoices in all the details of his calling 
because he can carry them out perfectly ; who rises. 






The Joy of Labor 225 

slowly and surely toward the height of his ambi- 
tion, and sees the labors of his mind and of his 
hands growing out of the weary days into the 
beauty and strength that he gave them. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

ACHIEVEMENT 

"And note the matchless deed's achieved, 
Determined, dared, and done." 

Chbistofher Smabt. 

N work well done there is a satisfaction which is 
the greatest reward of labor. The sense of 
achievement is at once a payment and a promise. 
It compensates a man for toil and drudgery, and 
it stimulates him with such a sense of power that 
his ambition seems nearer to realization. Those 
who plod on day by day, following well-defined 
roads and making no excursions away from the 
herded crowds into the byways of life where perils 
and adventures wait, never know the joys of tri- 
umph that come to a man who has been battered 
and wounded in fierce fights, who has been hurled 
down into the depths of despair, and yet from those 
depths has started to climb again with undimin- 
ished cheerfulness and courage until he has pain- 
fully gained the heights. Only the man who has 
been down, who, in the words of the world, has 
" failed," can know the exquisite pleasure of rising 

226 



Achievement 327 

to the summits of life. He knows that he is more 
than equal to whatever troubles may await him. 
He knows that in the hour of danger his mental 
powers will take unto themselves such an access of 
strength that the perils will be overcome, that the 
struggle will be joyous, and that the triumph will 
be sweet. 

If it were not true that every completed task 
brings a sense of power that is more than a com- 
pensation for the weariness of the work, life would 
be unbearable. The ambition that lures us on over 
the stony and terrible ways of life is never com- 
pletely satisfied. Always a man hungers, like Alex- 
ander of old, for fresh worlds to conquer. He does 
not gain his reward from his gratified wishes, but 
from the sense of personal power that his con- 
quests bring him. 

It is a fine thing to attempt what other men fear, 
and to succeed in the endeavor. It is finer still to 
go forth into the dark, fearing yourself, yet deter- 
mined to conquer and prevail. Do you suppose 
that a man who has once tasted the sweet fruit of 
achievement in the face of odds that looked over- 
whelming, would exchange his stony path for the 
well-trodden highways that the crowd travels over f 
To live by routine, to answer to the beck and call of 
others, to subject your will always to the wills of 
others, and never to assert yourself, to let others 



228 Personal Power 

bear the burden and heat of the day, even if yon 
share the spoils — this is slavery. No man is free 
unless he is mentally free. Unless you think for 
yourself and have the courage to act according to 
your own judgment, whatever the world may say 
(so long as you believe yourself to be right), you 
are a slave to convention, and you live in the depths 
beneath the feet of the heroes who dare and do. 

Those who are content to do always what others 
tell them, and are afraid to accept responsibility, 
are subject to more dangers than those who invite 
the difficulties that accompany original endeavor. 
You are engaged in business, we will say. You are 
one of a host of clerks engaged upon routine work. 
The man who thinks for you and plans your day's 
work leaves, or dies, and another takes his place. 
If he does not care to think for you, you are in 
peril of being thrust out into the cold world with 
no one to guide you, when you will be helpless. If 
you are accustomed to think and act for yourself, 
you are never in such danger. You are mentally 
independent; and if all the people you know sud- 
denly withdrew their help and advice, you would be 
no worse off: indeed, you would at once console 
yourself with the reflection that all sources of weak- 
ness which are associated with the tendency to rely 
upon others had been taken from you, and you 
would brace up your mental faculties to meet the 



Achievement 229 

new situation, thereby gaining an added power 
which is always available in those hidden wells of 
strength upon which the man who is mentally free 
knows how to draw. 

It is the pleasure of achievement that makes life 
really worth living. Everything that you set your- 
self to do and ultimately accomplish is an achieve- 
ment that brings you satisfaction. If you have 
weeds in your garden, and you set yourself to dig 
them, out before you go to bed, you get a sense of 
pleasure from the performance of the task. You 
do not mind the backache and the drudgery, be- 
cause you know how pleased you will be when the 
work is properly done. If you leave a task undone 
in order that you may engage in recreation, that 
task still awaits you, and the recollection of it spoils 
your pleasure. The mere knowledge that the hours 
you spend over it now will give you hours of leisure 
for play or more useful work later on, will make 
the task seem more pleasant to you than the idling 
which would be overshadowed by the sense of duties 
left undone. The sweetness of rest is entirely de- 
pendent upon labor. You enjoy sitting down by 
your fireside reading a book after a hard day's 
work, when you would be bored to distraction if 
you had been able to read all day long. If life were 
a perpetual holiday, we should not revel in the 
sense of leisure as we do when we leave our work 



23G Personal Power 

behind us for a few days, conscious that it is well 
done and that we have earned our recreation. 

The joys of achievement are associated with 
every act of life. If you have read a good book, it 
is good for you if you have learned something from 
it, because you have achieved something mentally. 
It is better still to make a plan for reading a series 
of books to develop some special talent, to steal 
odd moments so that you can gain more power still, 
and to use time, which you would otherwise waste, 
for a useful purpose. The greater the struggle and 
the more complete your plan, the bigger will be 
your achievement and the joy of it. 

Make every day a period of achievement. Set 
yourself something useful to do and do it. It is 
not so satisfactory to take things as they come and 
perform the duties which they involve. That is 
only a partial achievement. Once you taste fully 
the sense of elation which achievement brings, you 
will plan for fuller measures of success, and the 
more you are able to accomplish by wise thought 
and a skilful use of your talents, the greater will be 
the joy you will get out of your life. 

Life's greatest pleasures come from the general 
sense of satisfaction which is derived from work 
well done. The real joy of achievement comes 
from a successful issue to a difficult undertaking. 
When you are faced with some problem which is 



Achievement 231 

quite new to you, and calls for the use of all your 
mental reserves, and the full powers of your intel- 
lect, you are a candidate for the reward of real 
achievement. The knowledge that you have proved 
equal to the unknown, that your mind did not fail 
you, is a revelation that brings such satisfaction as 
no money can procure. You gain confidence and 
strength, and so far from dreading responsibility 
and difficulties, you actually seek them as bearers 
of a gift of real pleasure that the pleasant things 
of the world can never bring. The consciousness 
that you can attempt successfully what other men 
fear will recompense you for your anxieties and 
drudgery, and will make you impervious to the 
sneers and timid counsels of the weak. 

Every man ought to be a pioneer. We cannot 
all go forth into the waste lands to be explorers 
or Empire-builders, but we can all blaze our little 
trails in the world of work and knowledge, and so 
help mankind to advance towards the final great 
perfection. He who fears to attempt cannot hope 
to succeed ; but the adventurer must never be fool- 
hardy. He must be equipped with full knowledge 
and strength to enable him to withstand the burden 
and heat of the day. He must plan wisely, walk 
warily, and work carefully. He must be ready for 
every emergency, and trained to carry out every 
detail. Any weakness will betray him into failure, 



232 Personal Power 

and tho he may rise again he loses time which 
is priceless to the man striving for greatness. 

Achievement is bound up with power. The 
greater the achievement the greater the power 
which made it possible. The harder the task the 
more qualifications are needed to perform it suc- 
cessfully. Thus the real joy of achievement lies in 
the fact that it is proof of the power you have de- 
veloped within you, and every new task you under- 
take that calls for a fresh addition to your personal 
power is urging you on to acquire more knowledge 
and wisdom. If you want to be mentally fit, you 
must dare everything. You must leave the main 
channels and plunge into the uncharted seas where 
you have to make your own course. It calls for 
courage, but the man who dares and is confident 
need never fear. v He will soon taste the first joy of 
achievement, and, once his appetite for this form 
of pleasure has been whetted, he will never be satis- 
fied with anything less than the constant use of his 
highest powers and a regular progress toward 
greater and greater things. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE USE OF BOOKS 

"fflhe words of the good are like a staff in a slippery place" 

Hindu Saying. 

THE trained mind continually asks itself what 
good is being obtained from the work it is 
doing. It is worth noting that every part of our 
bodies is so planned that it must be always work- 
ing. The only part of you that is indolent is your 
will-power. Even when you lie inert in bed your 
muscles are at work, fighting the tendency for the 
body to shrivel up. It is only by their constant 
labor that your legs and arms retain their normal 
positions. You have probably noticed, too, that 
you often turn right round in your bed while you 
are asleep, so that even your bones, because of their 
control by your muscles, cannot rest, but must 
work. If the great muscle, which is your heart, 
stops working, you die. It labors ceaselessly, 
pumping the blood through your veins, while the 
lungs supply your body with the oxygen which you 
breathe in from the atmosphere. 

233 



234 Personal Power 

Your mind, too, must work. If you are sitting 
still doing nothing, the thoughts will still crowd 
into your brain, and their character will affect your 
whole life and even shape your features. The only 
idle part of you is your own free will, and if you 
will heed the lesson of your body, you will feel 
ashamed if you do not use that will to control your 
mind and body so that you may create such things 
as you were made capable of creating. 

You have been provided with a perfect machine. 
In that respect you are no better than the lower 
animals, or the plants. By self-indulgence you can 
so ruin the machine that it will be useless to you. 
By careful development and self -training you can 
so master its uses that it will perform miracles you 
do not dream of. Every moment you waste, your 
working body calls out shame at you. It must 
work, and your brain must work. Why not, then, 
plan their work for them so that you can improve 
your knowledge and grow in wisdom and power? 

You are born with certain instincts which guide 
you in your everyday conduct. The experience 
you gain under present conditions added to those 
instincts will enable you to carry out the work your 
brain devises. The more knowledge and experi- 
ence you possess the better you will be able to plan. 
You will then have a larger scope for your activi- 
ties, and will be able to get more out of your life. 



The Use of Books 235 

Experience is gained in two ways: by contact 
with other people in the actual affairs of life, and 
by absorbing the experiences of others through 
books. The wise man profits by the experiences of 
others, because it necessarily follows that, if we can 
avoid the mistakes other people have made, we 
shall avoid waste of effort. The right use of books 
not only gives us the experience of others to add to 
our own, but it gives us knowledge of life which 
stimulates our unconscious instincts. An inventor, 
for instance, does not need to start at the beginning. 
By study he is able to begin where the last man 
left off, and the clever man is quick to take advan- 
tage of this facility. If you are in business, you 
can collect the experiences of clever business-men 
and save years of drudgery. While your compet- 
itors are idling you can consult the master-minds 
of commerce and learn their secrets for success. 

Tho you do not want to be always studying, 
it is not necessary to waste time in reading books 
that cannot help you at all. The masterpieces of 
literature are as interesting as trash, and they are 
good all through. Trashy fiction, for instance, is 
the imaginative effort of second-rate writers, who 
seek only to amuse. The great masters describe 
life and its problems, and so enlarge your experi- 
ence while they stimulate your thought. 

There are millions of books available for you to 



236 Personal Power 

read, but you have only time to read an infinitesi- 
mal part of them. How careful, then, should you 
be in making your selection ! 

It is not so difficult as it may seem to choose 
your reading. Bearing in mind that you read for 
pleasure as well as instruction, the books you will 
need most are those which will please your own 
particular tastes, and those which will suit your 
own individual needs. Let us ask ourselves a few 
questions about books, remembering that it is only 
by ordering our lives on the principles of reason- 
ing in this manner upon everything, that we can do 
all that we are capable of doing. 

Some people like certain kinds of books out of 
which other people get no enjoyment. You must 
remember, however, that the best books are not so 
pleasing to the uncultured mind as the trashy ones. 
You have to read them carefully to appreciate their 
beauties of style, thought, and construction, and 
you have to read them slowly so that you can 
ponder over their messages, and thus stimulate 
your brain into activity. 

The right way to begin reading a book is to ask 
yourself, " What am I going to get out of this? " 
Not the idle passing of an hour so much as real 
pleasure and a real insight into some phase of life 
or of knowledge. When you put a book down ask 
yourself what are its merits. If it possesses a 



The Use of Books 237 

lucid and beautiful style, study that style by learn- 
ing certain passages by heart, and also by reading 
other extracts, and then writing them down in your 
own words for purposes of comparison with the 
master's work. If it has a good plot, with charac- 
ters who seem to live, ask yourself what problems of 
life it explains. Fiction, when it is good, has the 
supreme merit of taking you out of the workaday 
world and transplanting you to a region where you 
can forget the troubles and worries of your own 
life. Many a man with a love for reading has re- 
freshed his tired brain and gained new courage by 
the change of mental air which he can obtain from 
literature. The man who loves reading can always 
have pleasure. He does not envy the millionaire 
in his yacht or motor. He sits in his armchair and 
is happier than the rich man, for he knows that, so 
long as he has a small library of good books, he can 
talk with the great thinkers of the world, who will 
put the richest treasures of their minds before him. 
Besting before his fire, he may roam through all 
the countries of the earth, viewing their beauties 
and their industries, studying their histories and 
meeting their great statesmen, writers, scientists, 
and thinkers. When he is tired of travel, the wits 
of the world will amuse him. When he is despon- 
dent, the great men of the world will tell him of 
their own struggles, and how they conquered by 



238 Personal Power 

sheer force of will. When he is in difficulty, the 
cleverest and wisest men who have ever lived will 
come to him with advice and help. A well-chosen 
library is a constant pleasure, a continual help and 
inspiration, and the best investment a man can 
make. Living always in the best company, he is 
strengthened and enlivened, and becomes inde- 
pendent of outside pleasures, oblivious to the de- 
pressing influences of the weather, and imperturb- 
able in the face of the troubles and perils of life. 

" To divest myself of a troublesome fancy," 
says Montaigne, " 'tis but a run to my books "; 
and Emerson writes: " In the highest civilization 
the book is still the highest delight. He who has 
once known its satisfactions is provided with a 
resource against calamity. Angels they are to us 
of entertainment, sympathy, and provocation — ' 
silent guides, tractable prophets, historians, and 
singers, whose embalmed life is the highest feat of 
art; who now cast their moonlight illumination 
over solitude, weariness, and fallen fortunes." 

We come, then, to the question of what to read, 
and here the man of independent thought will ask 
himself what sort of books will help him most. 
There is plenty of advice on reading to be had from 
all kinds of thinkers. Emerson's advice is as sound 
as any. " The three practical rules which I have 
to offer," he says, " are: 1. Never read any book 



The Use of Books 239 

that is not a year old. 2. Never read any but famed 
books. 3. Never read any but what you like; or 
in Shakespeare's phrase, 

No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en: 
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.' " 

Start with the classics and get a good insight 
into the various branches of literature. Books that 
are widely read, especially when written by great 
authors, must be worth your while to read also. 
Let me put down a few names of books which you 
can obtain in good cloth bindings for not more than 
eightpence each, and you will get some idea of the 
rich treasure at your hand for the expenditure of 
a few pence. 

In fiction there are " Oliver Twist " by Charles 
Dickens, Thackeray's " Vanity Fair " and " Henry 
Esmond," Scott's " Talisman," Dumas 's " Three 
Musketeers "; in poetry, Shakespeare's plays, 
Tennyson's poems, and Milton's u Paradise 
Lost"; and in essays and belles-lettres, Lamb's 
" Essays of Elia," Ruskin's " Sesame and Lilies, 
etc." (which will teach you how to read), Bacon's 
Essays, Holmes's " Autocrat of the Breakfast 
Table," Emerson's Essays, Carlyle's Essays, and 
Macaulay's Essays. These are but a few sugges- 
tions for an excursion into the delights of liter- 
ature which will serve to cultivate your tastes and 




240 Personal Power 

whet your appetite for the best, which is so easily 
obtainable. Any library of " classics " issued by 
a good publishing-house will afford a reliable guide 
in the choice of books. Read such biographies as 
Boswell's " Life of Johnson," such art books as 
Buskin's " Modern Painters," autobiographies 
like Evelyn's Diary or Pepys's Diary, and the rest. 
Any and all of these will broaden your outlook on 
life while adding to your knowledge. 

There are, besides, world-famous books which 
are so familiar that they are neglected by most 
people. Of these the most conspicuous example is 
the Bible. Every man should read the Bible, if 
not for its religious teaching, then for its wisdom 
and truth. Here we have biographies of remark- 
able men and women, the wisdom of sages, drama, 
poetry, tragedy, and perhaps even fiction. No 
book will make you think more, will inspire you so 
much, will comfort you more with hopeful philoso- 
phy or provide you with better counsel to guide you 
in all your perplexities. As if this were not enough, 
the Book is written in faultless English, which 
will cultivate your style. John Bright, the famous 
orator, owed his great reputation solely to his 
familiarity with the Bible, and no author has ever 
surpassed its perfect writing. It will pay you to 
read the Bible through for its surpassing literary 
excellence alone, and you cannot fail to derive 






The Use of Books 241 

mental power from the lofty idealism which is so 
wonderfully expressed in the inspired writing that 
it contains. 

Much has been written about the joys of refer- 
ence-books, and the subject is an interesting one, 
which shows in a remarkable manner how subjects 
which seem dull enough, are, in reality, full of in- 
terest to the man with a discerning mind. 

Two such works are a necessity in every library, 
however small it may be: a dictionary and an 
encyclopedia. You can buy a dictionary very 
cheaply, and you can acquire an encyclopedia on 
the instalment plan, which will place no strain on 
your purse, and will in any case be an investment. 
I would add to these, as soon as the funds available 
will permit of its purchase, a self-educator, and 
I would also make the suggestion that these books 
of reference should be acquired as soon as possible, 
even before the general works of literature which 
have already been referred to. 

It is absolutely necessary when you hear a word 
or read one or think of one of which you do not 
know the exact meaning that you should turn it up 
in a dictionary. Never use words which you are 
not sure of, and never miss the opportunity of get- 
ting acquainted with new words. Of course, you do 
not want to use words which people generally do not 
understand, but you do want a good command of 



242 Personal Power 

language, and you need to look at the meaning of 
words closely if you are to understand fully what 
you read, especially in the cases of the great 
writers. 

With an encyclopedia you have a concise guide 
to knowledge that will supplement your news- 
paper and your studies. If you do not want it for 
reference purposes you can sit down and read it just 
as you would a novel, and every sentence will in- 
struct as much as it will interest you. Go into a free 
library and dip into an encyclopedia, and you will 
get some idea how useful it will be. It is more than 
a work of reference or a readable book, it is a veri- 
table guide to knowledge. You will come across all 
sorts of interesting subjects which were unfamiliar 
to you, but which you will want to know more about. 
Think what this means. It is as if you arrive at 
the crossroads of learning, and see a sign-post 
with directions pointing the way down all sorts of 
fascinating avenues: politics, biography, history, 
science, art, and so on. You can see at a glance 
which roads you will like to travel, then you can 
journey a little way down any one of them, and, 
if it pleases you, you can travel on until you come 
to the point where that particular road ceases, 
with another sign-post telling you what other roads 
you must travel to reach the end of that particular 
subject. Get an encyclopedia, and all the byways 



The Use of Books 243 

to knowledge are ready at hand for you to make 
your choice. 

There are other encyclopedias, which give de- 
tailed information about definite branches of 
knowledge — such as business and literature — which 
are equally fascinating; but, to start with, get a 
standard work dealing with general information, 
and later on you can provide yourself with those 
books which cover any special subject in which you 
are interested. 

It is a good thing to know some particular sub- 
ject well, and make it your hobby. Some men get 
their greatest pleasure in digging among the 
second-hand book shops in search of bargains. If 
you do this, confine yourself to one class of book, 
say art, or furniture, or china, or poetry, and form 
a complete little library restricted to that subject. 
You will then have a definite aim in view and will 
save yourself a good deal of expenditure which 
would otherwise be profitless. If you get inter- 
ested in any branch of learning you will always 
derive pleasure from adding to your knowledge of 
it, and you will always find in your little library 
such restfulness and pleasure as would come to you 
if you could transport yourself into another world, 
away from all the doubts and perplexities which be- 
set you in this one. 

What I want you to gather from all the fore- 



244 Personal Power 

going is this : Do not read aimlessly any more than 
you would work aimlessly; but, in precisely the 
same manner in which you work for a definite pur- 
pose, so must you put positive force into your read- 
ing. Aimless reading is a negative occupation. It 
leaves the acquisition of real interest, pleasure, and 
knowledge entirely to chance. Everything that 
your mind devises for you to do is to be for your 
good and for the development of your powers. 
Apply this principle to your reading, and while you 
will enjoy it even more than if you read for plea- 
sure and relaxation only, you will add immeasur- 
ably to your brain-power by assimilating, on a sys- 
tematic plan, the best thoughts of the wisest men 
who have ever lived, and the records of the most 
inspiring deeds that the world has known. 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE RIDDLE OP LIFE 

"Into this Universe, and why, not knowing, 
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing: 
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, 
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing. 

" The Worldly Hope men set their hearts upon 
Turns ashes— or it prospers, and anon, 
Like Snow upon the desert's dusty face 
Lighting a little hour or two — is gone." 

Rubaiyat op Omar Khayyam. 

SO soon as people commence to think for them- 
selves they begin to donbt. They have mis- 
givings about everything. Robert Louis Stevenson 
said, " We are none of us infallible, not even the 
very young." (A charming and accomplished lady 
once quoted that to me in my salad days, and I 
have never forgotten it.) There are two sides to 
every question, and sometimes one cannot tell 
which is the right side. People who have engaged 
actively in politics know that a vast majority of 
voters hold their political convictions by a sort of 
instinct. They absorb their opinions from the men- 
tal atmosphere in which they live. In the City of 
London there is a large wholesale dry-goods ware- 

245 



246 Personal Power 

house. Certain departments would benefit greatly 
by Protection, and others which flourish under 
Free Trade would be seriously crippled. One 
would think that the two men at the head of the 
business would be competent to form an accurate 
opinion on the merits of this involved subject, yet 
one is an ardent Free Trader and the other is an 
enthusiastic Protectionist. If it is difficult to form 
convictions about the practical realities of life, is it 
any wonder that certain problems which baffle us 
cannot be judged on any known principles of sci- 
entific knowledge ? 

All through the ages, what is termed il The 
Riddle of Life " has baffled men. Those who take 
their thoughts ready-made from others either ac- 
cept the conditions of living in a spirit of fatal- 
ism or of religious hope. Others, and particularly 
those who live hard lives, ask themselves, " Why 
am I here, and for what am I working? " Tenny- 
son said, ' * There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
believe me, than in half the creeds." None can 
answer the riddle of life for you. Only your own 
experience can lift the veil of the mystery of 
existence, and show you the shining promise of the 
Beyond. 

Modern life, with its rush and its stress of com- 
petition, tends to breed selfishness. " The weak 
must go to the wall " is a doctrine of self. The 



The Riddle of Life 247 

mother who glories in her first-born and showers 
her self-sacrificing love upon it, has no such doc- 
trine. In protecting her little one she develops her 
finest instincts, and the best mothers find part, at 
any rate, of the solution of the riddle of life in the 
happiness of their everyday existence. 

Logic teaches us that, if certain causes produce 
certain effects, similar causes will produce similar 
effects. We argue from the known to the unknown, 
and whatever there is in life that is baffling and in- 
scrutable can be solved by the spirit of faith and 
hope arguing from the knowable facts of our every- 
day existence. Every piece of good work is an 
achievement. The man who dreams and does noth- 
ing may well ask what is the good of living. The 
man who paints a picture finds in the achievement 
a joy which teaches him that every work of his 
hand and brain will bring him some reward either 
of success or of power. The man who despairs 
and says he never has a chance, will never get his 
chance because he will not go out and seize it. The 
millionaire creating vast organizations and carry- 
ing through big achievements by their aid, does so 
because he creates his chances. If he sat still and 
moped he would be so much the poorer. If the head 
of any big business decided to rest on his oars, his 
connection would soon be wrested from him by his 
energetic competitors and his income would go. 



248 Personal Power 

Rewards in life go by merit alone. They must be 
striven for, and the reward comes with the first 
effort of striving! in the consciousness of work well 
done. 

The prime object of existence is happiness. If 
we work merely for money, we may get some sort 
of pleasure out of it, but we know that when the 
Dark Angel rings down the curtain of Death our 
money will be parted from us ; and in that thought 
lies the doubt that sours the whole of life. The 
pursuit of worldly advantage is a noble aim, but 
it is not the chief end of existence. The best things 
of life, the things which tell us surely and convinc- 
ingly that the pleasures of prosperity are not every- 
thing, dwell in states of the mind. The only real 
happiness is in the mind; the grasp of a friend's 
hand, the sound of a voice that thrills the heart, 
the uplifting melody of some strain of music, the 
joy of feeling the spring stirring in the blood — 
these are the things that really matter, that link us 
to Nature, and that hold the promise of life here 
and through all the ages. 

A successful man once said to me, ' ' I would not 
give a fig for a man who has not had some great 
setback in his life. The man who has never tasted 
the bitterness of defeat and found it a spur to in- 
creased effort has never tasted the real joy of vic- 
tory/ ' I never think of this without recalling the 



The Riddle of Life 249 

experience of two men with whom I was very 
closely connected. Both of them experienced a 
sudden, sharp reversal of fortune. One was left 
with a bare means of living, the other lost every- 
thing. The former turned tail on his troubles, and 
went away into the country, where he determined 
to live on what he had saved out of the wreck. He 
brooded on his misfortunes, told people they had 
ruined his health, and, tho a perfectly strong 
man, became a hypochondriac. The other could 
not have run away even if he had wanted to. He 
summoned all his fortitude to his aid, all his opti- 
mism, all his faith, and fortune came tumbling at 
him on the heels of his troubles. What had seemed 
a disaster turned out the best thing that could possi- 
bly have happened. If he, too, had run away he 
would never have had that fortune and would never 
have tasted the sweets of snatching victory from 
the jaws of defeat. Be sure that whatever troubles 
come to you, if you face them with courage they 
will pass by as the idle wind, and leave behind the 
prosperity of which they are only the harbingers. 
Every one who has faced sorrow and disas- 
ter, who has come through the fires of adversity, 
knows well from his own experience that for every 
trouble life can bring there is some greater com- 
pensating advantage. " All things work together 
for good. ' ' The snows of winter serve to warm the 



250 Personal Power 

earth and protect the seeds that bring forth the 
glorious blooms of summer. 

All through Nature and all through life we see 
that the things which are gloomy and unpleasant 
inevitably develop into brightness and happiness. 
Who does not know the beautiful lines: 

" Hark, hark, my soul, angelic songs are swelling 
O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore." 

But, in days of doubt and difficulty, how many go 
out into the fields to hear the immortal strains of 
the angelic songs which are wafted in every breeze 
from the four corners of the world to bear a mes- 
sage of hope to those who will listen? 

One knows, of course, that there have been great 
minds who, out of their innermost convictions, have 
asserted that everything ends with this life. One 
must respect honest thought, but the fact remains 
that the majority of thinkers through all the ages 
have held that the ultimate end of all things is 
Paradise, the land of Promise, where all tears will 
be wiped from our eyes, " and those that are good 
shall be happy." Quite apart from any religious 
belief in the life to come — and the earnest worker 
will always be content to be judged by his life's 
work — it is clearly demonstrable that there is a 
reward for every earnest endeavor, every loving 
thought and every kindly act. Why should there 



The Riddle of Life 251 

be a need for rewards in a life hereafter! Paradise 
is not merely a state of the hereafter, it is here and 
now. It is in the mind, and is revealed in the 
thoughts of those we love and those who love us. 
Who that has seen his mother praying by her bed- 
side has not felt the angls hovering near? Who 
that has loved his friend has not tasted the sweets 
of life and found that the world was good? Are 
these things visions to torment us with an unrealiz- 
able hope? Or are they glimmerings of a perfect 
realization of all those things which we hold dear- 
est? If there is any virtue in thinking for oneself 
in the solitudes that come to all of us, surely it lies 
in the hope and faith that must be born when we 
turn our thoughts to the riddle of life and find a 
satisfying answer in the depths of our own souls. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE LESSONS OF ART 

" Art should exhilarate, and throw down the walls of circum,' 
stance on every side, atcakening in the beholder the same sense 
of universal relation and power which the tvork evinced in the 
artist, and its highest effect is to make new artists." 

Emekson.. 



H 



AZLITT opens his essay " On the Pleasure of 
Painting ' ' with the following words :— 



" ' There is a pleasure in painting which none but paint- 
ers know.' In writing, you have to contend with the world: 
in painting, you have only to carry on a friendly strife with 
Nature. From the moment that you take up the pencil and 
look Nature in the face you are at peace with your own 
heart. No angry passions rise to disturb the silent progress 
of the work, to shake the hand, or dim the brow ; no irritable 
humors are set afloat. You have no absurd opinions to com- 
bat, no point to strain, no adversary to crush, no fool to 
annoy. You are actuated by fear or favor to no man. 
There is ' no juggling here,' no sophistry, no intrigue, no 
tampering with the evidence, no attempt to make black white 
or white black; but you resign yourself into the hands of a 
greater power, that of Nature, with the simplicity of a child 
and the devotion of an enthusiast. ' Study with joy her 
manner, and with rapture taste her style.' The mind is calm 
and full at the same time. The hand and eye are equally em- 
ployed. In tracing the commonest object, a plant or the 
stump of a tree, you learn something every moment. You 
perceive unexpected differences where you looked for no such 

252 



The Lessons of Art 253 

thing. You try to set down what you see — find out your 
error, and correct it. You need not play tricks, or purposely 
mistake: with all your pains you are still far short of the 
mark. Patience grows out of the endless pursuit and turns 
it into a luxury." 

I commend the whole essay to the reader who 
wishes to find some indications of the beauties of 
the world of Art. But what thoughts even this 
short passage stimulates! Art is not merely the 
revelation of beauty and truth. It shows us how 
perfect Nature is, and how imperfect man is, while 
it stimulates us to struggle patiently after perfec- 
tion, in the sure hope that we shall approach nearer 
to it with each industrious day. While we learn to 
appreciate the beauty of common things, the tran- 
quillity of Nature encourages us to calm philos- 
ophy. We see that all the little tasks have their 
own part in the sublime whole, and this reflection 
invests the meanest of our labors with a sublimity 
of which our minds were ignorant. 

Art is a great educator. It is the expression of 
the earliest form of writing, when men conveyed 
their meanings to one another through the medium 
of rude pictures. In a square of canvas an artist 
can convey with one flash of illumination a story, 
or a thought, that the writer could only impart 
through the medium of hundreds of words. In this 
sense Art is the easiest form of education which a 



254 Personal Power 

man can take up, and while he is learning history, 
or beauty, or mythology, his feelings are stirred by 
the glowing colors which heighten the effect of 
the painter's message. 

Art is the revealer of Nature. When Turner was 
painting his marvelous pictures, there was a huge 
controversy about his work. People said that his 
lurid colors were untrue to Nature, and, at a casual 
glance, they appear to be so. Yet when on occa- 
sion the lighting in the sea or sky recalls one of his 
pictures we find that his work was true, after all. 
The only failing was due to the limitations of the 
human mind, which is too imperfect to reproduce 
the gorgeous manifestations of Nature. Yet a 
study of Turner 's pictures enables us to appreciate 
the wonders of the Mind that paints the heavens 
with such hues that we cannot copy them, or spreads 
across a patch of country such harmonies of mass 
and color that the merest reproduction of them 
upon canvas is a sight that rouses beautiful 
thoughts for years afterward. 

The man who studies the work of the great 
artists learns to appreciate the beauties of the 
world around him, through the eyes of men who 
have an instinct for finding beauty. He sees the 
loveliness of the world, and sees it ever afterward : 
when the thunder clouds roll up he does not com- 
plain because the day is wet, but finds in their men- 



The Lessons of Art 255 

acing shapes and terrifying colors an inspiration 
that he never found before. 

The true artist is not a critic, but a worshiper. 
He does not say, ' ' I can paint a sunset better than 
God paints it," but " God has painted a sunset: 
let me strive to copy it. ' ' He is so near to Nature 
that he feels his own littleness, and yet, with the 
consciousness of how small a thing he is, he feels 
that he is greater than the inanimate beauties 
spread before him, because they are provided for 
him, and because, in an imperfect degree, he can 
create similar beauties. 

It is a good thing for a man to hold such views. 
Instead of criticizing others, and even his Creator, 
he measures himself by the handiwork of God and 
asks himself how far he falls short of the stature 
that God intended for him. 

It is easy to study Art, and perhaps that is the 
reason why so many men neglect this part of their 
mental education. We must have a standard to 
measure ourselves by, and that standard must be 
perfection. Without it we cannot tell whether we 
are progressing or retrograding. Art is one of the 
helps we may use in forming our standard of 
beauty, and it is also a means of learning many 
things we should not have time for otherwise. We 
can study a dozen pictures in an afternoon, and 
each one of them will provide some special knowl- 



256 Personal Power 

edge which we shall remember easily, because we 
have only to conjure up a mental picture of the 
canvas to have all the facts before us. 

As I write, I have just opened, haphazard, the 
ordinary catalog of the Tate Gallery in London. 
Five pictures are mentioned in the two pages be- 
fore me, all of them by Sir John Millais. The first 
is " Ophelia," representing a scene from Hamlet, 
and the extract given from the play enables me to 
get an insight into the poet's mind which perhaps 
I never could get otherwise. When I want to read 
something in the future, the memory of this picture 
inspired by Shakespeare's genius will remind me 
what a vast literary treasure is ready to hand for 
my use. 

Next I come to " The Vale of Rest," showing a 
convent garden at sunset. Two women are in the 
garden. One of them is digging a grave, while the 
other sits upon a fallen headstone with her rosary 
in her hands. Here a different set of emotions is 
touched upon. One thinks first of all of these wo- 
men shut out from the world, but not from its 
sorrow, and the artist subtly suggests by his light- 
ing and the arrangement of his figures the coming 
of the night of gloom, and the promise of the stars 
and the dawn that will shortly follow. 

Next I reach " The Knight Errant," showing 
a knight in full armor, cutting with his sword the 



The Lessons of Art 257 

thongs that bind a naked girl to a silver birch-tree. 
All the glamor of the days of chivalry comes over 
one, and the thoughts wing their way back through 
the years to the days when England's history was 
beginning, so that one realizes that the perplexi- 
ties and troubles of to-day, which look so formid- 
able, had their counterpart in the past and shall 
culminate in glory in the future. Again, one sees 
that the worries of to-day are the triumphs of to- 
morrow, and the gloomy hours are cheered by the 
sight of a picture that makes us contrast the days 
of old with the days that are. 

' ' The North- West Passage ' ' is the next, and the 
sight of the weather-worn seaman, listening to the 
story of the search for the North-West passage, 
stirs the heart with the pride of race, and inspires 
the mind to loftier purpose. 

Finally, we come to " Mercy — Saint Bartholo- 
mew's Day, 1572," which shows the Catholic war- 
rior, sword in hand, held back by the nun who 
kneels before him. Here we read a page of vivid 
history, and perhaps are tempted to study the 
period by the interest which the picture arouses in 
us. 

As one walks through a gallery like this, the 
mind is broadened. New paths of knowledge are 
revealed to us, while the brain is stored with a suc- 
cession of pictures which can be remembered easily. 



258 Personal Power 

Such an education as pictures give cannot be 
neglected by the man who seeks mental power. 
To wander through the rooms and gaze idly at the 
pictures is not enough. Take the catalog with 
you. It will tell you about the artist, his struggles 
and his methods, as well as about his pictures. 

You will find, for instance, that the famous Sir 
Joshua Eeynolds, the first President of the British 
Eoyal Academy, worked so hard that for years he 
completed three or four of his well-known portraits 
every week, and found time also to paint other 
pictures. You will find that Meissonier was so 
careful over the details of his pictures that he would 
hire armies and make roadways to get the exact 
effects he wanted. You will no longer be tempted 
to think that these great painters simply sat down, 
brush in hand, and painted away carelessly and 
easily. All the hard work they did, all the care they 
took, will be revealed to you as you look at their 
pictures with discerning eyes and see their real 
meaning as you draw their lessons from them. 

Why, do you suppose, do the great nations and 
cities build vast art-galleries and buy pictures? 
Not because the pictures are merely beautiful, but 
because they have such a rich educational value. 

Even if you live in a place where there is no art- 
gallery you can have the great pictures of the 
world brought into your home by means of the 



The Lessons of Art 259 

admirable colored reproductions, with explanatory 
notes, which are available in cheap forms nowa- 
days. If you do not love pictures, study them, and 
understand them, your intellectual power is not 
complete. 

Art does something more than educate; some- 
thing more, even, than form your tastes. It helps 
to create character. Lord Leighton, who stands as 
the ideal type of artist, explained what this means. 

" Art is," he said, " in its own nature wholly independent 
of morality, and whilst the loftiest moral purpose can add no 
jot or tittle to the merits of a work of art as such, yet there 
is, nevertheless, no error deeper or more deadly — and I use 
the words in no rhetorical sense, but in their plain and sober 
meaning — than to deny that the moral complexion, the ethos 
of the artist, does in truth tinge every work of his hand, and 
fashion, in silence, but with the certainty of fate, the course 
and current of his whole career. Believe me, whatever of 
dignity, whatever of strength, we have within us, will 
dignify and will make strong the labor of our hands; what- 
ever littleness degrades our spirit will lessen them and drag 
them down. Whatever noble fire is in our hearts will burn 
also in our work; whatever purity is ours will chasten it and 
exalt it." 

The closing words of his first Presidential Ad- 
dress at the British Royal Academy ran : — 

" Study with deep and reverent admiration — and that ad- 
miration cannot be too deep or too reverent — the works of 
the great men who have gone before you; brace and fortify 
yourselves in the contemplation of their strength ; catch what 
you may of the fire that was in them; walk in their light, en- 



260 Personal Power 

rich and enlarge your powers by the knowledge and under- 
standing of the means by which they move us; but never 
forget that the common greatness of them all is their sin- 
cerity, and that it is only through sincerity that you can hope 
to emulate them, even from afar; be assured that your work, 
in order that it may live, must be the direct and truthful 
representation of your own individual emotions, not the echo 
of the emotions of others. Without sincerity of emotions, no 
gift, however facile and specious, will avail you to win the 
lasting sympathies of men, for, as Goethe has truly said: 

" ' The chord that wakes in kindred hearts a tone, 
Must first be tuned and vibrate in your own.' " 

Such are the lessons that Art can teach you — 
to be industrious, to be humble, to be true. The 
contemplation of beauty will beautify your mind. 
You will gain knowledge in an easy and pleasant 
way by studying pictures. Insensibly your mind 
will set up standards which will ennoble and in- 
spire you; and, above all, you will learn, through 
the medium of the painters' brushes, how wonder- 
ful are the works of the Creator whose most mar- 
velous creation is the mind of man — Your Mind. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE SECRET CHAMBER 
" The shadow of a great rock in a weary land." — Isaiah. 

WALKING up a suburban road one summer 
evening, I turned a corner where another 
road rises and stretches away some three hundred 
yards. Eight at the end of that vista a glorious 
harvest moon hung low over the housetops like a 
great golden jewel, mysterious and luminous, and 
near-by, in attendance on it, a brilliant star flashed 
and sparkled like a heavenly gem set in the infinite. 
The twilight covered the harsh-looking houses with 
soft shadows. Everything was arranged by the 
Master Hand to intensify the mystic loveliness of 
the lantern of heaven. The brain said it was a 
suburban street; the mind saw the majesty of one 
of Nature's most wonderful miracles. 

Some people never see such scenes. Put them in 
a garden full of flowers and they see nothing, and do 
nothing but chatter small talk. Others see beauty 
in stones, in stagnant pools, and in rocky solitudes. 
The truth is, that the world is full of beauty, of joy, 

261 



262 Personal Power 

light, and happiness. They are for us to see and 
know and feel, just as we look for them and con- 
jure them up within our souls. The sensitive wax 
of the phonograph records sounds and reproduces 
them at our will. Our minds are infinitely more 
sensitive than any instrument man can make. 
They record faithfully every pleasant and harmful 
impression, and they reproduce them just as faith- 
fully, all and any of them according to the dictates 
of our own wills. 

Under the influence of a splendid book, a noble 
work of art, or an uplifting harmony of music, the 
splendid, noble, and elevating records of the mind 
respond most surely, giving a sensation of pleasure 
which is but a reflex of their action on the mental 
faculties. The more we can store our minds with 
beautiful thoughts, the more shall we be able to 
attract the beauties that surround us on every side. 
The more we can use these treasures of the soul 
the happier will our lives be. Our minds are like 
grand musical instruments. Played upon by the 
sensitive, trained will, they are capable of wonder- 
fully beautiful harmonies, far nobler than the most 
inspired conceptions of a Beethoven, a Shakes- 
peare, or a Michelangelo. A sage once remarked 
that the finest conceptions of a poet's mind were 
those he never wrote. The mind that is in harmony 
with Nature, that can respond to the beauties of a 



The Secret Chamber 263 

summer night, as the musical instrument gives out 
its melody under the touch of a master-hand, can 
feel the music of the spheres and know that the 
ecstasies of the songs of Paradise are being repro- 
duced in the soul by the touch of the Master Mu- 
sician. ^. 

Some musical instruments get out of tune and 
produce only discord whoever plays them. They 
correspond to the mind that has fed itself upon 
noxious thoughts and pessimistic reflections. Even 
the Master Hand can produce nothing but discord 
from such an instrument. Yet, just as the instru- 
ment which is out of tune gives from time to time 
a pure, sweet note, so within the rankest mind a 
noble sentiment responds every now and then to 
the majesty of some manifestation of Nature. 
There is, in every mind, a recess which imprisons 
lour ideals. We may hedge it round with thoughts 
of every description, bolt and bar it so that it is 
most difficult to penetrate, yet every now and then 
some touch of memory or of conscience releases 
the spring and gives a glimpse of the angel in the 
man. 

In such a place we keep our holiest thoughts and 
memories — the mental pictures of our mothers are 
there, the records of our baby prayers and our 
childish hopes. In that secret chamber — the holy 
of holies of the mind — the pure aspirations of life 



264 Personal Power 

flourish or lie dormant, waiting for the sunshine to 
make them bloom and transform every action into 
perfection. It is a place to enter reverently, to 
keep sweet, to fill with precious fragrance from a 
thousand noble dreams. All that will make us bet- 
ter, that will make love in us and call love to us, 
dwells in that hallowed spot. It is the ark of the 
soul, a veritable flame and pillar of cloud to guide 
us through the perils of the world, and keep us se- 
rene and unafraid amid all the terrors of life and 
death. 

None may enter this secret chamber save the 
owner himself. It is beyond the door to which none 
else may hold a key. All of us have our secrets and 
our memories which we cannot share with our near- 
est and dearest. These may peep from time to 
time into the precincts of the chamber, they may 
get some dim, far-off glimpse of its treasures, of 
its faded and cherished blossoms, but more than 
that they can never know. Perchance, when we die, 
the treasures that we keep there we may take with 
us, and to us they will be as dear as any of the joys 
that await us in the Elysian Fields. 

It is the pleasure and duty of every well-trained 
and well-balanced mind to reflect upon these things 
from time to time. If the practise of going to 
church has any special value, its usefulness must 
lie as much as anything in the fact that it makes 



The Secret Chamber 265 

a halting-time between the cares and duties of 
everyday life, when we can take stock of ourselves 
and make note of our weaknesses and our strength. 
We should note our weaknesses to remedy them, 
but we should not dwell upon them to the exclusion 
of thoughts upon our strength, which we must also 
take note of and make yet more strong. There is a 
type of religionist of the " I am a miserable sin- 
ner " order who lashes himself with his own scorn 
and makes a god of his weakness, when he should 
ask forgiveness for his sins, and, having put them 
away, pray for strength to make life worthier. We 
may all be sinners, but we have no right to be 
miserable sinners, seeing that we have been given 
the birthright of the inspiring hope of an immortal 
life where all is lovely and perfect. 

Some people who never go to church get the 
same effect by retiring into the secret chamber of 
the soul in their own homes. In our moments of 
solitude we should do this for the purpose of re- 
freshing the mind with the tender and gracious 
thoughts that dwell in this holy of holies. So shall 
we gain grace for our souls and strength to conquer 
and endure. At such a time we should judge our- 
selves, and blame or praise according as we find 
ourselves worthy or unworthy. Some people are 
oversensitive to the criticism of the world. The 
greatest figures in history have gone their way in 



266 Personal Power 

the performance of their allotted tasks serenely un- 
conscious of the opinions of others. Vituperation 
and flattery have affected them not at all. All they 
asked for was the approval of their own conscience, 
the knowledge that they were doing right. Other 
people cannot judge you, they do not know the 
limitations of your temperament or of your mind. 
You, yourself, alone know these things, and you can 
praise yourself if you have done well and should 
blame yourself if you have fallen short of your 
powers, no matter how much others may praise you. 
Those people who are deprest, who find the 
world hard and cruel and unlovely, are the folk who 
keep the chambers of their souls locked too often 
from themselves. They are afraid of its sadness 
and of its peace. They know it is washed with 
tears, but they forget that out of its pity is born 
love, out of love hope, and from hope life. " Our 
sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest 
thought." Out of the sadness rise memories of 
happy days that are gone, giving promise of the 
happy days to come. The gentle melancholy of 
the days that are no more teaches us to find the 
beauty of the day that is here and of the days that 
are before us. Are these things sadder than the 
vicious and pessimistic thoughts that we admit 
in their stead? Should we welcome the glorious 
promise of spring if there were no winter to hold 



The Secret Chamber 267 

the hidden wonders of the summer? Can there be 
perfect happiness without the experience of sor- 
row? The rain and the snow and the storms come 
in their appointed seasons, but the memory of them 
fills the summer wind with a sweeter fragrance. 
Open the doorway of the soul every day. Let your 
thoughts wander in the solitudes of its chamber, to 
gather there strength and encouragement to cleanse 
them from the stains of worldly toil and tempta- 
tion, and to find in its calm and tender peace a sure 
hope for the future that shall comfort and uphold 
you in all your doings. 



CHAPTER XXVIXI 

MUSIC AND THE MIND 

" There is music even in Beauty. . . . There is a music wher- 
ever there is a harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we 
may maintain the music of the spheres; for those well-ordered 
motions and regular paces, tho they give no sound to the ear, 
yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of har- 
mony." Sib Thomas Beowne. 

ALTHO music is primarily concerned with 
the emotions, it has a decided mental value 
also. I remember once listening to a sermon by the 
late Dr. Dallinger, in which he opened up a line 
of thought that imprest me very forcibly. " The 
composer," he said in effect, " is a discoverer. He 
does not make the melody, for it is already made. 
All that he does is to find out the combinations of 
sounds and write down the symbols which repre- 
sent them." The world is full of music. All the 
loveliest melodies you ever heard, and subtle har- 
monies you never dreamed of, are around you, 
tho you cannot hear them. Sometimes you or 
some other person, by speaking or singing, or play- 
ing upon an instrument, cause the sound-waves to 
vibrate, and then they are made audible. 

268 



Music and the Mind 269 

The man who is in tnne with Nature hears all 
sorts of melodies that others are deaf to. Every 
part of his being throbs in unison with the deep 
harmonies of the universe. The dawn sings to him 
of hope, the noon of endeavor, and the night of rest. 
When he sings for joy, he is responding to the 
chords touched in his being by the melodies he feels 
around him; and when he whistles to encourage 
himself, he summons from the forces of Nature the 
cheerful sounds that will react upon him and drive 
away fear and despair. 

All around us are hidden forces we cannot under- 
stand. Some people are frightened by them, while 
others are encouraged. I have known many people 
with deep religious convictions to be terrified by 
the sound of thunder. Equally I have known per- 
sons who rarely go to church, who hear in the 
thunder the voice of the Creator. They are not 
terrified, because they reflect that the Being who 
speaks in such awe-inspiring accents made them and 
gave them dominion over the earth through the 
gift of mind, and they regard the fearful sounds 
merely as a manifestation of that Great Power upon 
which they can draw fully in their hour of need. 
Of course, the state of terror which many people 
experience during a thunderstorm is largely a 
physical condition due to the state of the atmos- 
phere, but the mind can counteract the limitations 



270 Personal Power 

of the body and fortify it to resist the tendency to 
succumb to its own weakness. The child is fright- 
ened when it sees a white-shrouded figure, which 
the adult laughs at because he knows it is only an- 
other human being making himself ridiculous in a 
sheet. We are terrified by the unknown, while we 
are courageous in the face of dangers the nature of 
which we can understand. 

Few people understand the effect of sound. It 
is a study in itself. The playwright makes full use 
of it to gain his weird effects. You will find that 
Shakespeare often does so, and many a modern 
dramatist has caused a cold shiver to run down the 
spectators ' backs by a skilful suggestion of horror 
conveyed by a sound. In one modern play the 
father of a dead son summoned him back to earth, 
and as he ceased his invocation there was the sound 
of knocking on the door. The effect was electrical, 
altho the nocturnal visitor turned out to be harm- 
less flesh and blood. 

If one were to divest religion of its music, it 
would lose a great part of its appeal in one way, 
tho it might gain in another. Music intoxicates 
the soul like wine. It stirs the senses, and uplifts 
or depresses the mind according to its character. 
The effect soon wears off, however, and that is why 
the man who feels inspired with such noble senti- 
ments in church will go to business the next day and 



Music and the Mind 271 

cheat his fellow man with the cheerfulness of the 
most hardened sinner. 

The man who secures the lasting effect of music 
is he who carries it about with him, stored up in 
his mind. When he is despondent, he sings, and 
summons the cheerful sounds of the universe to 
make sweet melodies for him. Unless you can re- 
spond to the music you hear, it cannot affect you. 
If a violin is not properly tuned up, it can only pro- 
duce discord. You are like that. You must tune 
yourself up to be responsive to the enlivening music 
of the world. Even the roar of cities may be an 
inspiration as it speaks to you of activity and 
power. Some people have the effect upon us as of 
music, like Evangeline : 

" When she had passed 
It seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music." 

It is possible for people to gather into them- 
selves the music of the spheres, as the diamond 
gathers light, and diffuse it around them to stir 
the emotions of others with gladness. The music 
may be mute and inaudible, but it stirs the soul in- 
stead of the mind with wonderful melodies such as 
the ear can never know. 

The sensitive chords within us vibrate to emo- 
tions caused by many varied things. The same 
thrill that comes to one man from a picture will 



272 Personal Power 

come to another from a poem, and the effect of a 
rose will be the same upon one man as that of a song 
upon another. Sometimes, too, the same " note " 
will sound in a man from different causes. A 
certain circumstance will induce a corresponding 
frame of mind. Years after, perhaps, a musical 
phrase will arouse the same feelings and send the 
thoughts flying back through the years to the past. 
It is as well to remember these things, because 
they have their lessons for the man who thinks for 
himself, and he can often turn them to practical 
account. For instance, the case mentioned above, 
of music suggesting something which happened long 
ago, teaches us that sound may be brought into 
account to help our memories. I remember, at 
school, a master advising us when we wanted to 
learn a difficult passage, to make up a tune and 
learn to sing the passage to tkat tune. Afterwards, 
when we wanted to remember the passage, the 
melody would suggest the words, and as it is easier 
to remember a tune than a sentence, we were able 
to make a difficult work easy by attacking it through 
some helpful channel which was by its nature easy. 
There are helps all round us if we only take the 
trouble to find them out. There is an easy way to 
carry out the most difficult task. Let us then find 
out that way and do the work, rather than complain 
how hard it is. and thus make it more difficult still. 






Music and the Mind 273 

The study of music is an uplifting force for the 
mind. You cannot, perhaps, learn to play an instru- 
ment or to sing, but you can learn to appreciate 
the music of the world. You can learn to use it, 
and you can enjoy the music that is made for you 
by others. Music is intended to help you and to 
cheer you. It can help you by calling forth the 
deepest and sweetest emotions of your soul, and it 
can cheer you by the enjoyment which it brings. 

You can appreciate music better if you can un- 
derstand something about it. You do not need to 
bother about its technicalities so long as you under- 
stand that the composer is trying to convey some 
idea to you, not by the written or spoken word 
which reaches your mind, but through the emotions 
which make you feel. 

A composer told me on one occasion that any 
written phrase at once suggested a musical one to 
him. He thought in terms of music, not of words. 
If he wrote ' ' I love you, ' ' we will say, in music, he 
wrote it in passionate melody which would strike 
just the same chord in the hearer's breast that 
would be affected if the words were said to him by 
some one he loved. In another way, the composer 
wishing to describe a storm in music will skilfully 
represent the sound of the rain and the wind, or 
the sea lashing the rocks. He will make you hear 
armies marching and horses galloping. He will 



274 Personal Power 

show you children at play, the sun shining on the 
hills, and the flowers blooming in the sun, till you 
can sense their very fragrance. Only if you under- 
stand can you hear, see, and feel these things. The 
man who does not understand hears only a medley 
of sound which conveys nothing to his mind. 

In every day life music has the same applica- 
tion. One man will read a passage of poetry and 
it will sound dull. Another will read it, giving 
every word its proper sound, every inflection of the 
voice its proper value, and every phrase its due 
measure. You will then hear the music of the 
poet's mind, and his verses will take on a new and 
fuller meaning. 

The human voice is the most wonderful instru- 
ment in the world. It can invest a sentence with 
different meanings according to the manner in 
which you use it. I remember my father talking 
about two different Shakespearian actors. Both of 
them in playing their parts had to repeat the line — 
" Silence that dreadful bell ! " 

One of them said the words in a peevish, fretful 
voice that made them sound ridiculous as well as 
petulant. The other uttered them in such tones 
of horror that the audience was moved to applause. 
Just say it over to yourself, and see the different 
expressions which you can put into such a simple 
sentence. 



Music and the Mind 275 

Suppose you are walking along a street, and as 
you pass a certain house you hear some one play- 
ing an ill-tuned violin. It grates upon your ears 
and jars all your senses. Altogether the effect is 
displeasing and repellent. Farther down you hear 
another instrument with a deep, rich tone, making 
the same melody, and the effect is altogether dif- 
ferent. You are soothed and inspired. The tune 
was the same, but the tone and method were dif- 
ferent. So it is with the human voice. You can 
make the most gracious sentences sound unpleasant 
if they are spoken without sincerity and heartiness, 
and in an uncultured tone. Speak from the heart 
and let your hearer feel the music of your good-will. 
Speak musically, so that the melody of your voice 
may stir him to appreciation. It is not hard to do 
this ; it only calls for thought and care, which will 
be well repaid. 

The supreme lesson which music teaches is that 
of truth and sincerity. You strike a note upon the 
piano lightly and carelessly, and you get an in- 
complete volume of sound that affects the ear and 
emotions only to a slight degree. Then you strike 
the same note carefully and ' ' hang on to it, ' ' with 
the result that you obtain a clear, rich, sweet note. 
Unless the player of an instrument enters into the 
spirit of the composition he cannot reproduce the 
effect which was in the composer's mind. What the 



276 Personal Power 

musician really does is not to play upon his instru- 
ment so much as to play upon the responsive chords 
in his hearer. Music gains its force from this 
alone, and unless the notes are reproduced fault- 
lessly upon a perfect instrument, the composer's 
message is marred and can never be fully realized. 

You can moralize upon these facts, and you will 
gather from them some idea of what music has to 
teach you. If you will study it, therefore, you will 
gain mental power as well as intellectual pleasure, 
and you will be the better for having some closer 
acquaintance with the art of composition, on the 
principle that a general all-round knowledge must 
be allied to specialization in one or two subjects if 
our mental equipment is to be completely adequate 
to our everyday needs. 

Unless you wish to take up music as your chief 
study, you will have little time for research into 
its various branches, but the amount of culture 
which is necessary can be acquired by making a 
point of hearing the works of the world's greatest 
composers, and by endeavoring to understand their 
aims and the methods by which they sought to at- 
tain their objects. 

The oldest form of musical instrument which we 
read about is associated with religion, the earliest 
mention in the Bible being in Genesis, where we 
read that Jubal, the son of Lamech and Adah, was 



Music and the Mind 277 

the " father of all such as handle the harp and 
organ." These were very primitive instruments, 
the former doubtless consisting of a few strings 
stretched across a frame, while the latter was prob- 
ably made up of reeds of graded lengths bound to- 
gether and played by passing them backward 
and forward across the lower lip. From these our 
present intricate and perfect instruments have been 
evolved by gradual processes, culminating in the 
great organs, the diverse parts of an orchestra, and 
the marvelous inventions which produce music by 
mechanical means. 

The form of music grew out of similar simple 
beginnings. Music was first of all the primitive 
expression of emotion, and we read of it in connec- 
tion with religious fervor, as in the instance when, 
after the crossing of the Eed Sea, the children of 
Israel joined in a song of thanksgiving. It is 
worth noting that the old poetry of the Bible, with 
its vivid realism and beauty, has inspired modern 
composers to some of their best work : witness the 
music to which we sing the Psalms to-day, and the 
famous oratorios of Handel, with all their color 
and majesty. It is also instructive to observe that 
even in those far-off days the crude instruments 
were capable, in masterly hands, of affecting the 
emotions of the hearer very powerfully. Did not 
David, the poet-musician, make his first steps 



278 Personal Power 

toward the throne by means of his music? " And 
Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man 
that can play well, and bring him to me. . . . And 
it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was 
upon Saul, that David took a harp and played with 
his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, 
and the evil spirit departed from him. ' ' 

Much of our knowledge has come down to us by 
means of music, as in olden days the deeds of the 
heroes and the victories of the nations, as well as 
their ideals and aspirations, were sung by the bards 
and were handed on from generation to generation 
until they came to be written for our learning. If 
music has proved such a force as this in the prog- 
ress of the world, it will play an important one in 
the years to come, tho perhaps in a different way, 
and for this reason the man who is acquiring 
culture will wish to know something of its history, 
of its capabilities, and of its aims. 

Music is affected by climate and the conditions un- 
der which it was written. The barbaric music of the 
East differs from the more civilized harmonies of 
the West, and thus by becoming acquainted with the 
work of different great composers we can enlarge 
our mind by the same process which it undergoes 
from wide reading or by travel in foreign lands. 
From Italy or Spain we shall get more emotion 
than from the colder northern climates, as you can 



Music and the Mind 279 

judge by a comparison of the works of Bizet (who 
wrote " Carmen ") and Grieg (who composed the 
" Peer Gynt Suite "). Their works will affect you 
in quite different ways, and this illustrates the 
mind-developing power of a musical education, even 
of the cursory character suggested in this chapter. 
Let us now consider some of the great composers, 
and the different effects which they aim at in their 
work. 

Johann Sebastian Bach was an eighteenth-cen- 
tury composer who wrote for the organ, harpsi- 
chord, violin, for voices without instrumental ac- 
companiment, and for voices accompanied by organ 
or orchestra. In all these branches of his art he 
excelled, his work being characterized by a wonder- 
ful dignity, allied with simplicity, pathos, and mel- 
ody. Bach's works have been called " the bread- 
and-butter of music — a necessity of everyday life. ' ' 

Handel, whose great work is a degree below that 
of Bach, combined the grace of the Italian compos- 
ers with the force of the German School. He spe- 
cialized in vocal and organ music, and his best work 
is the oratorio " Israel in Egypt." 

Beethoven's music is remarkable for its noble 
and lofty inspiration. His work may be classified 
under two headings: (1) his symphonies, and (2) 
his sonatas. The former are his greatest compo- 
sitions. 



280 Personal Power 

Schubert was one of the foremost musical geni- 
uses the world has known. Unfortunately, he died 
at the age of thirty-one, so that his talent never 
reached final completeness, but even so he left be- 
hind him a series of immortal works which will de- 
light musicians for all time. He was the ' ' father ' ' 
of modern song-writing, and he composed more 
than five hundred songs, including " Hark, hark, 
the Lark! " and " Who is Sylvia? " His work is 
fresh and spontaneous, and extraordinarily delicate 
as well as tuneful, and a comparison of his songs 
with those of modern popular writers shows that 
while the latter may learn much from him they may 
never excel his work or surpass his high level of 
general excellence. 

Mendelssohn was an elegant writer, with the gift 
of rich color. His best work is that which is not too 
emotional, as in the case of his famous " Songs 
without Words, ' ' rather than in his more ambitious 
compositions like the " Elijah." 

Passion and emotion are the dominant charac- 
teristics of Schumann's writings, with an occasional 
touch of romance. His greatest claim to enduring 
fame is based upon his songs and his pianoforte 
pieces. His piano concerto in A minor is a work of 
surpassing excellence, while among his songs the 
" Frauen Liebe und Leben " cycle, either consid- 
ered as single numbers or in their relation to one an- 



Music and the Mind 281 

other as a conception of femininity, are noteworthy. 

Wagner is, perhaps, the most persistently dis- 
cussed musical genius of the world. He was an 
originator, and, because he was gifted with a double 
genius, which enabled him to write words as well as 
music, he was able to set about his task of revising 
the whole method of writing operas. It was not 
sufficient for him that the music should express the 
emotions : the words and emotions must both find 
perfect expression in the music. For this reason, 
before Wagner's music can be fully understood one 
must be conversant with his words. When his 
' ' Nibelungen ' ' words were published, they aroused 
the derision of his critics, but even these were si- 
lenced some years later when the words were given 
with their musical setting. 

We find that Wagner took an infinity of trouble 
over his gigantic tasks. When the words satisfied 
him he made three manuscripts of the music, one 
of which was a mere sketch in outline, the second a 
development of the same, and the third the final, 
well-considered, finished score. 

It is characteristic of Wagnerian opera that the 
orchestral accompaniment suggests the moods and 
emotions of the text as fully as the singer's melody, 
and in listening to one of his operas it is instructive 
to know that their adequate rendering demands a 
faultless vocal method. 



282 



Personal Power 



Mozart composed six hundred and twenty-four 
works, and enriched the whole field of musical art 
with his genius. To a gift of rich, pure melody he 
adds wonderful resources of harmony and instru- 
mentation. Among his works which may be studied 
with advantage are his celebrated symphonies in 
C major, G minor, and E flat, his noble " Bequiem 
Mass, ' ' and his charming operas 

These brief sketches of famous composers are 
but cursory glances at their methods, which show 
that there is a variation of musical genius and 
method to be studied in their individual styles. 
They are examples of the master music-makers of 
the world, and will give you a knowledge of music 
which will make you desire a fuller acquaintance 
with ancient and modern masterpieces, while ena- 
bling you to understand the evolution of music from 
its crude beginnings to its present varied forms. 
When you hear the work of a composer performed, 
and know something about his life and his aims, or 
the peculiar virtue of his music, you are able to 
enjoy his compositions better, and to gain more 
knowledge, because you know what you have to 
watch for and wherein the merit of the work lies. 

You can be a student of music without perform- 
ing, or you can be a musician and give pleasure 
to others by your interpretations of works of 
genius or of talent. In either of these capacities 



Music and the Mind 283 

you will be the gainer of physical and mental power. 
Playing the piano or any other musical instrument 
with the hands develops muscular power and exer- 
cizes the mind and the emotions. Singing strength- 
ens the voice, throat, and lungs, and helps you to 
speak musically and correctly. If you are a prac- 
tical musician yourself you can better appreciate 
the work of composers, writers, singers, and musi- 
cians, but even if you are not, and you understand 
something about music, you will gain in mental 
efficiency very considerably. 

Listening to music inspires us with noble 
thoughts and aspirations, and helps us to appreci- 
ate the music of Nature. As our ears and souls be- 
come sensitive to melody, we can catch the subtler 
harmonies that are around us, and so develop the 
more delicate senses within us. All education is 
good, but the learning that will make us morally 
stronger, that will make us responsive to beauty and 
enable us by the force of our own minds to catch 
the happiness, laughter, hope, and encouragement 
from the unseen forces which surround us, is the 
best learning of all. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

SERENITY 

"Hath he not always treasures, always friends, 
The good, great man? — three treasures, love and light, 
And calm thoughts. ..." Colebedge. 

SOME men are like the chaff which is blown 
hither and thither according to which way the 
wind blows. All the enduring things stand firm 
in the face of every shock that assails them. The 
storms pass by, and they are just the same as be- 
fore, beyond those subtle changes which the eye 
cannot detect. 

Here is a thought which may not have occurred 
to you. Material things are weakened by shocks, 
but mental and spiritual things are weakened by 
the absence of them. The rock that is beaten by 
the sea year after year wears away, firm as it may 
be. Let a man, however, be continually tested and 
worried, if he is mentally powerful he will not only 
throw off his troubles, but he will emerge from 
them strengthened and even encouraged. It was no 
mere accident that made man master of the world 
and of his fate. He became master because he was 
stronger than all things in the world — not physi- 
cally, but mentally. 

284 



Serenity 285 

It needs only one shock, successfully opposed, to 
prove to a man that he is the greatest thing in the 
world. By means of electricity man has annihilated 
space. He has gathered force from the waterfalls 
and harnessed them for his own use. He has sent 
his mind into space to study the heavenly bodies, 
and he has always succeeded except in such cases 
when he has attempted to measure his mind against 
the Supreme Intelligence from which he draws his 
own power. 

If your mind were so great that you could con- 
trol all the forces which dominate the world, noth- 
ing would shake your serenity, and the broader and 
stronger you make it, the less will the petty trou- 
bles of life disturb you. You may lose your money, 
and even your friends, and yet remain serene and 
undaunted. There are compensations for every- 
thing. Those who have never sorrowed cannot ex- 
perience the full delight of happiness. A life of 
continual pleasure would be hideously monotonous. 
We should not appreciate our friends if we had not 
tried them and found them sympathetic and help- 
ful when our dark days came. The very essence of 
love and friendship is the sharing of sorrows as 
well as joys. We should never realize the worth of 
money or the value of success if money and success 
were easy to come by. It is always by means of 
shadows that we realize the beauty of light, and the 



286 Personal Power 

man that has never been tried in the fiery furnace 
of disappointment, loss, and grief is spiritually and 
mentally incomplete. He who can come forth from 
these flames purified and strengthened will never 
fear the ' l bludgeonings of Fate. ' ' As Omar Khay- 
yam puts it: 

" And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, 
End in what All begins and ends in — Yes; 

Think then you are To-day what Yesterday 
You were — To-morrow you shall not be less." 

Retain your knowledge and your courage, and 
you will always be rich, and if you do not grow 
richer you will not grow poorer. Tho friends 
may pass from you, the love of those that remain 
will be dearer still. When you lose the capacity for 
friendship and for affection, when you no more can 
enjoy the beauties of Nature, which are free, then 
you are poor indeed, but not till then. 

You should be discontented only with your lack 
of mental riches, but you should otherwise thank 
God for the blessings of life. 

" How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music 
Creep in our ears ; soft stillness, and the night. 
Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven 
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; 
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 



Serenity 287 

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims; 
Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
But whilst the muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." 

When you have sufficient for your wants and the 
unparalleled riches of the earth and sky for your 
own, you are far better off than the millionaire who 
sees no beauty in the landscape, and catches no 
music from the air of heaven. You carry your 
riches and wealth about with you in your mind. 
Money is useful only for what it can bring you, and 
if you are not contented with the simple joys of 
life, such as conversation, reading, and healthy 
work and recreation, then you are a beggar, tho 
all the fabled treasures of the East were in your 
coffers. 

" In my garden," said Alexander Smith, " I spend my 
days; in my library I spend my nights. My interests are 
divided between my geraniums and my books. With the 
flower I am in the present: with the book I am in the past. 
I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me. I 
breathe the morning air of the world, while the scent of 
Eden's roses yet lingered in it, while it vibrated only to the 
world's first brood of nightingales, and to the laugh of Eve. 
I see the pyramids building; I hear the shoutings of the 
armies of Alexander; I feel the ground shake beneath the 
march of Cambyses. I sit as in a theater- — the stage is 
time, the play is the play of the world. What a spectacle it 
is ! What kingly pomp, what processions file past, what 
cities burn to heaven, what crowds of captives are dragged 
at the chariot-wheels of conquerors ! I hiss or cry ' Bravo ' 



288 Personal Power 

when the great actors come on, shaking the stage. I am a 
Roman emperor when I look at a Roman coin. I lift Homer, 
and I shout with Achilles in the trenches. The silence of the 
unpeopled Syrian plains, the out-comings and in-goings of 
the patriarchs, Abraham and Ishmael, Isaac in the fields at 
eventide, Rebekah at the well, Jacob's guile, Esau's face red- 
dened by desert sun-heat, Joseph's splendid funeral proces- 
sion — all these things I find within the boards of my Old 
Testament. What a silence in those old books as of a half- 
peopled world — what bleating of flocks — what green pastoral 
rest — what indubitable human existence! . . . What king's 
court can boast such company? What school of philoso- 
phy such wisdom? " 

You cannot make such a man as that poor. He 
has his own peculiar riches with which he is well 
content, knowing that none may deprive him of 
them. Such riches are for everyone if they know 
how to find them, and the quiet soul who meets the 
tempests of life with fortitude will know how to 
enjoy the calms that must succeed all the storms. 

Be content with what you can earn, either of 
money or of knowledge, but strive always for the 
capacity for fuller enjoyment of the good things of 
this world which your own mind will reveal to you 
if you only encourage it to do so. The grumblers 
and the cowards are the destitute people of the 
world. Be brave, cultivate strength, and be thank- 
ful for the joys of life, and none may deprive you 
of your heritage, nor can any trouble or grief shake 
your calm or dim your faith. 



CHAPTER XXX 

SUCCESS 

" What I must do is all that concerns me — not what the people 
thinlc" Emebson. 

IF you were to ask half a dozen men to define 
success, you would gain from them an indica- 
tion of their mental caliber and outlook. There is 
something lacking in the man who measures success 
by the money standard. Success is an ideal state : 
it is nothing more nor less than perfection, and 
therefore we can never be entirely successful. All 
that we can hope to obtain is a partial success ; and 
for that reason, so long as a man strives with all his 
strength after perfection he can never be a failure, 
however far he may fall short of his ideal. 

Success, as we understand the term, is the mea- 
sure of our personal power. Money is the standard 
by which the world judges your success. You your- 
self should gage it by your own sense of accom- 
plishment. You make a success of whatever you do 
with all your might and to the best of your ability. 

289 



290 Personal Power 

Judged by ordinary standards, it may be a failure, 
but if you know it is the best work of your brain it 
is a success. Equally, what will satisfy the world 
may really be a failure. If a man writes a book 
carelessly or for the mere sake of making money, 
and not because he wants to do it well and takes 
pleasure in the labor, it is a failure if it is not the 
best work he is capable of producing, even the 
everybody talks about it and it brings a fortune. 

If you earn a lot of money and gain no friends, 
your life is a failure. Unless you make of your 
life all that you are capable of making it, you are 
a failure. It does not matter what people say of 
you: you yourself know the truth. You must 
ignore the artificial standard by which these things 
are judged. When all is said and done, you are a 
world unto yourself. All the earth, so far as you 
are concerned, is bound by the limits of your own 
vision and of your own knowledge. You came into 
the world mentally alone. You live an individual 
existence for which you alone can render account, 
and you pass into the vast Beyond — alone. Nothing 
that other people can say, think, or do, really makes 
you dependent upon them. Nobody can help you 
unless you also can help yourself, and unless you 
are worthy of help. Other people can earn money 
for you, but only you yourself can learn how to 
use it to advantage. You alone can make your 



Success 291 

self happy: you alone can keep yourself back. 
Why, then, should you allow yourself to be bound 
by mental conventions when your will is free, and 
your mind is your own to think your own thoughts ? 

There can be no power without mental inde- 
pendence. The great tendency of the age is for 
people to take their thoughts ready-made from 
others. Until you can think for yourself and create 
for yourself, you can never succeed. One man 
does a task one way, another man wants to employ 
a different method, or the labor becomes difficult 
and joyless. For instance, when I have a difficult 
business letter to send, the best way for me to set 
about it is to write it down in longhand first before 
having it typed. I find that my thoughts run more 
easily, and I am able to compose an intricate letter 
better by this method. Most people would find 
this plan laborious: they find it easiest to dictate 
right away to a stenographer, and it would be 
foolish for them to adopt my method just because 
I find it successful. The tasks that are performed 
by routine and admit of no deviations from a gen- 
eral rule are ill-paid tasks. Only the work that calls 
for original, creative thought brings a man into the 
limelight, and endows him with the responsibilities 
that lead him to the heights of his profession. 

Think for yourself. Decide for yourself the 
method of life and work which will best accord with 



292 Personal Power 

your own tastes, temperament, and abilities. All 
the great men of the world have been mentally free. 
They were not bound by standards: they made 
standards by which other men judged themselves. 
If Columbus or Isaac Newton had bound them- 
selves by the standards of their contemporaries, 
would the world have been the better for their 
having lived? Because they were mentally free, 
and because they acted and spoke and worked 
according to their own thoughts, they succeeded in 
their missions, and we feel their influence to-day. 

You may not be capable of influencing thousands, 
or even hundreds; but you can certainly influ- 
ence a few. What the extent of your power is you 
do not know, but you may be certain that you can 
influence nobody until you have confidence in your 
own powers. Unless you develop those powers by 
doing everything as perfectly as you can, unless 
you ever aim at greater perfection and a better 
and larger field of work, you can never attain to 
any degree of mental power, and never be anything 
but a failure. 

John Couch Adams, the codiscoverer with Le- 
verrier of the planet Neptune, was once walking 
on his native Cornish moors, when he got lost in the 
mist. He met an old man whom he knew, and told 
him that he had missed his way and could not 
find it. 



Success 293 

" Didn't you find this new star? " inquired the 
old man. 

" Yes," replied Adams. 

" And isn't it true that sailors guide themselves 
across the trackless deep by the stars? " the old 
man went on. 

" Yes, they do." 

16 Then what's the good of you finding out this 
new star if you can't even find your way across 
these downs ? ' ' asked the sage, and the question 
satisfied him as admitting of no reply. 

The point of this story is that if we are to let 
ourselves be bound by the thoughts of others we 
must remain in a narrow groove of ignorance. 
Had Adams remained in his Cornish village and 
thought that the ideas of the yokels were the con- 
fines of truth he would never have achieved fame. 

Never mind if people think you are wrong or fool- 
ish. They cannot judge. Let them think you are a 
failure if they like. So long as you know that you 
are doing your best, and are advancing in knowl- 
edge and power, that is the only thing that matters. 
Suppose, for a moment, that Napoleon as a boy in 
his Corsican home had been able to unfold the 
scheme of his life and the dazzling conquests which 
he made ; suppose he had announced that he would 
win a throne by his own powers. Everyone would 
have laughed at him, told him that he was mad, 



294 Personal Power 

and urged him to settle down to the life of the island 
as the extent of his ambition. If that had happened, 
and he had accepted their standard of thought, he 
would have done nothing, and the whole history of 
the world would have been different. 

You remember that when Noah was building his 
ark the people laughed at him for a fool; but he 
was saved when they were drowned. The work of 
the poet Keats was savagely attacked by the critics : 
if he had accepted their standard, how much poorer 
our literature would have been by the loss of his 
work ! Yet he was adjudged a failure. 

If you will listen to other people and let your- 
self be guided by them, you bind yourself by the 
limits of their minds, and unless, by some happy 
chance, those you associate with are large-minded, 
you must cramp your intellect and remain one of 
the crowd for the rest of your days. 

The world is yours. The limit of your powers 
is the limit of your own mind, which will expand 
just proportionately to the manner in which you 
use it. Set up your own standard for everything. 
Trust your own judgment. If a certain thought 
is true, it does not matter if all the world proclaims 
it false : it is true just the same. If you are assured 
that a plan of action which you devise is the right 
one, the opinion of a thousand people to the con- 
trary will not necessarily prove it to be wrong. It 



Success 295 

is success to take your own course, even if it be 
wrong, so long as you believe it to be right. Do 
not be afraid of failure. Nobody is infallible, and 
it is not conceivable that the first man who offers 
you advice, with incomplete knowledge of your 
thoughts and of your capacity, should necessarily be 
a better judge than you yourself of what you ought 
to do. You know your own thoughts completely, 
and have full acquaintance with your capacity for 
your task.. 

If you believe your own judgment, if you are 
satisfied that you are making progress, and if you 
have confidence in your own powers, you are suc- 
cessful, whatever people may think, and despite the 
fact that you may not be making much money. 
Most people, considered as a mass, are like sheep. 
They run about hither and thither, bleating advice, 
uncertain what to do, and distrustful of anyone 
who wants to do anything out of the ordinary. 
They will criticize you to-day, copy you to-morrow, 
and follow you blindly the next day. Are such 
people to be your guides, to set up your standards 
for you? When you are criticized there is the 
probability that you are on the right road. Weigh 
criticism and listen to advice. Gather wisdom, 
even from the brains of fools, but decide for your- 
self. Go your own way after you have made 
sure that it is the right way and the best way 



296 Personal Power 

■ — the way that will lead you where you wish to 
travel. 

You are succeeding all the time you are striv- 
ing after something better, and you are a failure 
from the moment that you weaken. You must 
meet disaster bravely and cheerfully, and go on. 
You must encounter success without losing your 
head or your sense of your own limitations; and 
go on. You must work at congenial tasks and take 
the unpleasant ones with them; and go on to your 
next duty. You must snatch your brief joys, and 
look for more; help one man, and then assist 
another. Always you must advance, looking for- 
ward and fighting onward, for progress is success. 

Are you succeeding, or are you hesitating because 
you are listening to the craven whispers of those 
who lack courage as well as brains? One day you 
will have no option of choice: you will be called 
into the Unknown, and if you are cowardly in this 
world, you will go into the next with terror. The 
future cannot frighten the man with courage in his 
heart, and he who goes out of this life with the 
consciousness of work well and faithfully done will 
go armed at all points, a man mentally free, pass- 
ing into the land where the final success awaits him. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

THE REWARD OF POWER 

" But what is Life? 
" 'Tis not to stalk about, and draw fresh air 
From time to time, or gaze upon the sun; 
Tis to be Free. When Liberty is gone, 
Life grows insipid, and has lost its relish.'" 

Joseph Addison. 

BECAUSE life is what we ourselves make it, we 
ought to develop our capacity for using its 
gifts. The world is so ordered that while each one 
of us must shape his life by his own efforts, we are 
still dependent upon each other for success. The 
laborer provides us with the raw materials. "Com- 
merce and individual businesses are carried on by 
many hands controlled by a few brains. The man 
who can get people to give him all he wants, and 
all they can yield to him, is the most successful; 
and it is equally true that the higher a man climbs 
the more is he dependent upon other people for the 
maintenance of his prosperity. 

We learn from others, and we teach ourselves to 
apply our knowledge. We work with others, and 

297 



298 Personal Power 

we set ourselves to discover how we can get the 
most assistance from our fellows. If we want 
recreation, it is the more pleasant because we share 
it with our friends, and our task is to find out how 
to make our leisure moments delightful to our- 
selves and to others. For the full enjoyment of 
life we must always share our work and our plea- 
sure with others, and as they prosper and are 
happy, so do we succeed and find our own happi- 
ness also. 

Knowledge is of no value unless you can use it. 
Power is not worth having if it isolates you from 
your fellows. So long as you keep yourself to your- 
self you limit the horizon of your mind to your 
own experience and the information you gain from 
books. To shut oneself up in a library is not liv- 
ing, it is existing. If, however, you can learn from 
books and then go out and use your knowledge 
among your fellows in a practical manner, you are 
getting something worth having out of books. Do 
not limit your mental outlook to the confines of 
your own brain or of the four walls of a room, but 
go out into the broad world and see how old knowl- 
edge is being used as the basis for fresh knowledge, 
and keep your mind active and keen by contact with 
the minds of others. 

The Niagara Falls were an awe-inspiring sight 
always, and the rush of water was always impres- 



The Reward of Power 299 

sive in its power; but, after all, it was wasted 
power until man harnessed the waters and turned 
them into electricity. You might gather unto your- 
self all the knowledge of the world, but it would be 
quite wasted unless you made constant use of it. 
You might just as well be idle all day long as store 
up knowledge and power which you never turn to 
practical account. 

Life was meant to be full of action. When you 
cease to progress you begin to deteriorate. It is 
not necessary to work at high pressure all the time, 
or to get stale and so do unprofitable work. All you 
want to do is to see that you do not get mentally 
lazy. When you are tired you are entitled to rest, 
and you are meant to rest ; but when you are work- 
ing you must not be slipshod, and you must aim 
at nothing less than perfection. Add a little to 
your knowledge every day, progress a little every 
day, get some happiness out of every day, and you 
will lead a useful, ample existence. 

Ask yourself constantly what you are getting out 
of your life. The thoughtful man, who questions 
all things, often inquires of his soul what all his 
work really amounts to. Some support their drab 
existences because they believe in a Heaven after 
this life ; others do so because they must, and ask 
nothing of the future, because they do not believe 
in an after life. I would rather honestly believe in 



300 Personal Power 

annihilation after this world than accept the doc- 
trine of eternal damnation for people who did not 
subscribe to the religious views which I have heard 
expounded from my youth up. The strong mind 
formulates its own creed, and orders life accord- 
ingly. If mean actions and harsh thoughts are de- 
teriorating to my mind, I will not harbor them if I 
can help it; but I will not become a plaster saint 
for fear of punishment in some other world. I 
think that the man who uses all his gifts in this 
world, who enjoys the beauties of Nature, and who 
loves his fellow man, will become so strong in mind 
that he will pass to his final account quite unafraid, 
ready and willing to answer for all his thoughts 
and actions upon this earth. 

It should be enough that the world is a pleasant 
place, that we can enjoy our work, of whatever 
character it may be, and that, however poor or 
humble our circumstances, we can find our simple 
joys in the happiness of our friends. Am I to be 
gloomy because I fear death and what may or may 
not await me beyond the grave ? Am I to order all 
my thoughts and actions upon some idea of what 
will be their effect upon me in a world of which I 
know nothing ? Assuredly not. Can I suppose that 
the Being who placed me here, Who gave me the 
right to think and act for myself, Who filled the 
world with loveliness, music, and plenty, will blame 



The Reward of Power 301 

me for assuming my rights, or will give me any- 
thing less bountiful in the world to come? It is 
against all logic and common sense, and I will not 
believe it. 

I claim the right to think for myself and act for 
myself in accordance with those laws which I feel 
to be true. If I misuse my gifts, if I fail in my 
duty, if I make mistakes, I will accept the conse- 
quences ; but being here and alive, I will be thank- 
ful that I am alive, and I will enjoy my life within 
the limits which my mind prescribes. 

That is my creed, and it must be the creed of 
every man who thinks for himself. Let your actions 
and thoughts be dictated by the needs of this world, 
and you need fear nothing if your conscience is 
clear. You need not wait for the next world for 
your success or for your Heaven. Both are here 
if you do but know it, but they exist in your mind 
and not outside it. 

When you are struggling and working for mind- 
greatness, your encouragement must always be the 
reward which awaits your labors, and that reward 
is the supreme gift of the joy of living. All the 
time you work you will have the sense of increas- 
ing power. You will find fresher beauties in the 
world around you. Everything that lives will min- 
ister to your happiness and prosperity; everything 
that exists will add to your enjoyment. The dawn 



302 Personal Power 

will be a daily miracle to inspire and delight you. 
Every wind that blows will bear sweet tidings to 
your ear and perfumed incense from all the cor- 
ners of the world. The marching of the sun across 
the skies will warm your heart; the night will re- 
fresh you; the coming and going of the seasons, 
with their lessons of birth and life succeeding one 
another in regular order, will have their special 
meanings for you. Each day that you live you will 
turn a fresh leaf of the Book of Knowledge, and 
with every leaf fresh wonders and beauties and pos- 
sibilities will be revealed to you. 

You can have no greater pleasure than the knowl- 
edge that your mind can invest every task with 
interest, every difficulty with the promise of vic- 
tory, and every sorrow with peace. It is worth 
while to work for the power that will fill every 
moment with delight, so that you need never be 
dull or despairing. You are capable of making 
yourself perfect enough for this : that people will 
always be glad to help you, and you can learn to 
influence them so that they will wish to help you. 
You cannot avoid grief or anxiety, but you can 
always support them if your mind is under control 
and if your thoughts are helpful. 

What you are capable of you can never know 
until you try, but do not try to attempt too much 
at first. Go slowly with your learning, but go sure. 



The Reward of Power 303 

Increased mind-power and increased knowledge of 
how to use it will soon teach you your limitations 
as well as your capabilities. What you always 
have to remember is this : you are the master crea- 
ture of the universe, but you must be confident that 
you have the power within you to exercise your 
mastery, and you must make a point of using it. 

Start at once to develop the great resources 
within you. Map out your plan of action and fol- 
low it. You cannot order the course of your life, 
because you cannot control the conditions which 
govern it ; but if you are mentally strong and have 
an all-round development of mind and heart, you 
need never fear but that all things will work to- 
gether for good, and that at the close of life's day 
the reckoning will be paid generously according to 
the measure of your striving, and not according 
to the measure of your achievement. 

If the reasoning in this book does not appeal to 
you as being sound, and if it fails to inspire you 
with belief in your own power to make yourself 
mentally great, you can acquire the belief very 
easily by cultivating your gifts for a few months 
as a test. In a short while you will be ashamed 
of your doubts of yourself ; in a little longer time 
you will discover yourself, and at length you will 
come into your full heritage of personal power. 

' ' Only believe ' ' is the orthodox doctrine that is 



304 Personal Power 

sound sense, apart altogether from its religion. 
Let your motto be, ''I believe in myself," and if 
you strive to justify that belief you will never lack 
the supreme gifts which life has to offer you. 



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